Pure detection of the acoustic spin pumping in Pt/YIG/PZT structures

•The acoustic spin pumping (ASP) generates a spin voltage from a sound-wave injection.•Complete separation of the ASP from the spin Seebeck effect is demonstrated.•The pure ASP signal in Pt/YIG/PZT is much greater than previously reported data.

The acoustic spin pumping (ASP) stands for the generation of a spin voltage from sound waves in a ferromagnet/paramagnet junction. In this letter, we propose and demonstrate a method for pure detection of the ASP, which enables the separation of sound-wave-driven spin currents from the spin Seebeck effect due to the heating of a sample caused by a sound-wave injection. Our demonstration using a Pt/YIG/PZT sample shows that the ASP signal in this structure measured by a conventional method is considerably offset by the heating signal and that the pure ASP signal is one order of magnitude greater than that reported in the previous study.