Observation of the orbital Nernst effect

@misc{masuda2026observation,
  title = {{Observation of the orbital Nernst effect}},
  author = {Yuto Masuda and Takamasa Hirai and Daegeun Jo and Naoki Yano and Peter M. Oppeneer and Hossein Sepehri-Amin and Ken-ichi Uchida and Kazuya Ando},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.27604},
  eprint = {2609.27604},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.27604},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Observation of the orbital Nernst effect
AU  - Yuto Masuda
AU  - Takamasa Hirai
AU  - Daegeun Jo
AU  - Naoki Yano
AU  - Peter M. Oppeneer
AU  - Hossein Sepehri-Amin
AU  - Ken-ichi Uchida
AU  - Kazuya Ando
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/23
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.27604
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.27604
AB  - The Nernst effect, which converts a temperature gradient into a transverse charge current, is fundamental to thermoelectrics. Its spin analogue, the spin Nernst effect, enables thermal generation of transverse spin currents and is central to spin caloritronics. Recently, the discovery of orbital currents, the orbital counterpart of spin currents, has extended angular-momentum transport beyond spin, leading to the prediction of the orbital Nernst effect, in which a temperature gradient drives a transverse orbital current. However, experimental evidence for this effect has been lacking. Here, we report the observation of the orbital Nernst effect in Ti. Using Ni electrodes on Ti, we detect a thermally induced voltage that depends on the magnetization direction and scales linearly with the temperature gradient. This voltage is strongly suppressed both when Ni is replaced with Ni_81Fe_19 and when Ti is replaced with Cr, providing strong evidence that the signal originates from the orbital Nernst effect rather than the anomalous Nernst or spin Nernst effect. These results establish thermally driven orbital transport, opening a pathway toward orbital caloritronics.
ER  -