Giant thermopower in superconducting heterostructures with spin-active interfaces

Abstract

We predict parametrically strong enhancement of the thermoelectric effect in metallic bilayers consisting of two superconductors separated by a spin-active interface. The physical mechanism for such an enhancement is directly related to electron-hole imbalance generated by spin-sensitive quasiparticle scattering at the interface between superconducting layers. We explicitly evaluate the thermoelectric currents flowing in the system and demonstrate that they can reach maximum values comparable to the critical ones for superconductors under consideration.