Heat drives electron orbital currents, revealing first experimental evidence of orbital Nernst effect

The Brief · written from 2 sources

• Researchers detected heat-driven orbital currents for the first time in oxidized copper films, where temperature gradients generate electron orbital angular momentum.
• The phenomenon is called the orbital Nernst effect; the work was carried out at National Taiwan University and reported in Nature.
• The reported effect is a potential route to harnessing waste heat in spintronic devices.

• #orbital nernst effect
• #spintronics
• #copper films
• #waste heat
• #orbital angular momentum