New horizons for microwave applications using spin caloritronics

•Seebeck effect enables microwave rectification.•Spin caloritronic microwave sensors have been developed.•Spin caloritronic sensors enhance radar technique.•Spin caloritronic sensors enhance the antenna design procedure.

Recently, the combination of spintronics and thermo-electricity has emerged as the new field of spin caloritronics. It focuses on the coupling of spin transport with heat dissipation and mechanical excitations in magnetic structures. The search to find applications for this new discipline is underway. Motivated by recently discovered Seebeck rectification (Zhang et al., 2012) in nano-structured magnetic tunnel junctions, we explore the possibility of utilizing spin caloritronics in microwave applications. New horizons emerge by using spin caloritronic microwave sensors made of magnetic tunneling junctions, which may be adapted to existing radar and tomographic microwave imaging approaches as well as the standard antenna design procedure.