Spintronics: computation and memory technology using electron spin

UK researchers (from the University of Surrey and two more institutes) have been awared a 430,000GBP (around 700K$), 3-year grant to develop silicon structures for spintronic semiconductors. This is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the National Science Foundation of China

The project could lead to cheaper and more sophisticated computer processing technologies.While silicon has not been the material of choice for spintronic research, the team says exploration of silicon based platforms is important due to the potential for exploiting an extremely pure material and the far cheaper and more sophisticated processing technologies available.
The project will focus on manipulating electron spins with laser beams will look to build a prototype device. 

Via NewElectronics

American Elements announced the further expansion of its bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) production facilities to meet growing demand for the semiconductor material in computer chip production. BiTe forms available include powder, pieces (also lump and chunk), plates, discs, and sputtering targets for thin film deposition.

Bismuth Telluride may increase the speed of microchips, and be the basis of spintronics. 

At full capacity, the new facility can deliver several metric tons monthly.

Via AZOMaterials

A team of Virginia Commonwealth University scientists has discovered a ‘magnetic superatom’ – a stable cluster of atoms that can mimic different elements of the periodic table – that one day may be used to create molecular electronic devices for the next generation of faster computers with larger memory storage.

The team examined the electronic and magnetic properties of clusters having one vanadium atom surrounded by multiple cesium atoms. They found that when the cluster had eight cesium atoms it acquired extra stability due to a filled electronic state. An atom is in a stable configuration when its outermost shell is full. Consequently, when an atom combines with other atoms, it tends to lose or gain valence electrons to acquire a stable configuration.

There's a free discussion meeting in London, UK, about Spintronics. It will take place at 28-29  September 2009, at The Royal Society, London. Here's what the organizers say:

Recent advances in generating, manipulating and detecting spin-polarized electrons promise entirely new classes of spin based sensor, memory and logic devices, generally referred to as the field of spintronics.

These advances are based on recent fundamental discoveries involving spin polarized current in novel nano-materials, including, giant tunnelling magnetoresistance, the spin Hall effect, and the excitation of magnetization via the transfer of spin angular momentum from spin polarized current.

Scientists are studying a new phenomenon called "colossal magnetoresistance effect" (CMR), which is up to a thousand times more powerful than Giant Mmagnetoresistance effect (GMR) which is used in hard-drives today.

The researchers found that when a manganite was subjected to conditions above 230,000 times atmospheric pressure it underwent a transition in which its magnetic ordering changed from a ferromagnetic type (electron spins aligned) to an antiferromagnetic type (electron spins opposed). This transition was accompanied by a non-uniform structural distortion called the Jahn-Teller effect.

Ramamoorthy Ramesh, along with his colleagues at Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division in the US, successfully demonstrated that electric fields can be used as ON/OFF switches in doped multiferroic films. Multiferroics are materials in which unique combinations of electric and magnetic properties can simultaneously coexist.

They are potential cornerstones in future magnetic data storage and spintronic devices provided a simple and fast way can be found to turn their electric and magnetic properties on and off.

Ramesh and his colleagues at the Berkeley Lab, working with a prototypical multiferroic, have successfully demonstrated just such a switch - electric fields.

Read more at the Thaindian news

There are 3 new books released (actually not just yet, but ready for pre-order) related to Spintronics: 

• Magnetic Nanoparticles
• Nanomagnetism and Spintronics
• Nanomagnetism and Spintronics: Fabrication, Materials, Characterization and Applications

NVE reported their 4Q results today. Total revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 increased 14% to $6.90 million. Net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 increased 38% to $3.11 million.

NVE also signed a 3-year supply agreement with Phonak AG, a hearding aid producer.

A material just six atoms thick in which electrons appear to be guided by conflicting laws of physics depending on their direction of travel has been discovered by a team of physicists at the University of California, Davis. Working with computational models, the team has found that the electrons in a thin layer of vanadium dioxide sandwiched between insulating sheets of titanium dioxide exhibit one set of properties when moving in forward-backward directions, and another set when moving left to right.

With its unique properties, the material could open up a new world of possibilities in the emerging field of spintronics technology, which takes advantage of the magnetic as well as the electric properties of electrons in the design of novel electronic devices.

Researchers have developed a new technique to flip the spin of unpaired electons - Ballistic Spin Resonance.

Previous methods to do this - Electron Spin Resonance using high-frequency electric fields is difficult to generate on a chip. The new method should make it easier. The major drawback of the new method - the electrons are flipped in a random way... you can't actually choose the spin. Future studies hope to overcome this.

Read more at NanoWerk