Abstract: As a burgeoning subject, spintronics is very important for the development of electronics for the future. The spin Seebeck effect discovered in recent years has given rise to many new phenomena in spintronics. Through an introduction to some recent research on the spin Seebeck effect, we discuss its definition, and the commonly used methods to observe it with the inverse spin Hall effect. Following this, we describe various types of materials in which the spin Seebeck effect has been observed, and the arguments put forth to explain the effect.