Thermopower measurements in magnetic nanowires

Abstract Ferromagnetic nanowires (NWs) are a unique material system for studying electrical transport in a well-defined direction. The electrochemical synthesis allows nanometer-thin films in a nanometer diameter pore of an alumina membrane. This nanostructuring is especially interesting in the context of predicted size effects of the thermopowers of such systems. In the last two decades, literature focused mostly on two distinguishable systems, namely, multilayered magnetic/nonmagnetic NWs, and magnetic alloy NWs. In the present work, models to describe the thermopower and electrical resistance behavior of both systems are presented. The literature on Ni NWs as a characteristic system is analyzed as function of temperature and compared to literature of bulk Ni samples in order to evaluate the influence of nanostructuring on the thermopower. The magnetic field dependence throughout literature is evaluated and the relation of thermopower and electrical resistance is analyzed. Overall, the importance of the use of absolute thermopowers and a strong agreement with the Mott formula is found.