Spintronics: computation and memory technology using electron spin

Scientists from Ohio University has created a new spintronics memory device from plastic. It’s simply a thin strip of dark blue organic-based magnet layered with a metallic ferromagnet and connected to two electrical leads. Still, the researchers successfully recorded data on it and retrieved the data by controlling the spins of the electrons with a magnetic field. They say that the new device is a bridge between today’s computers and the all-polymer, spintronic computers that the researchers hope to eventually create.

via ZDNet

This book is a comprehensive experimental study into hybrid spintronics devices by Patrizio Graziosi.

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MATERIAL ENGINEERING IN HYBRID SPINTRONIC DEVICES: A comprehensive experimental study

Teams from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany and Stanford University have uncovered a new quantum state of matter in Heusler compounds which they claim opens up 'previously unimagined usage possibilities'. The scientist from Mainz has shown that many Heusler compounds can behave like topological insulators (TI).

TIs have been studied in the field of solid state and material physics. Characteristic of topological insulators is the fact that the materials are actually insulators or semiconductors, although their surfaces or interfaces are made from metal - but not ordinary metal. Like superconductors, the electrons on the surfaces or interfaces do not interact with their environment - they are in a new quantum state. In contrast with superconductors, topological insulators have two non-interacting currents, one for each spin direction. These two spin currents, which are not affected by defects or impurities in the material, can be employed in the futuristic electronics field of 'spintronics' and for processing information in quantum computers.

Dr. Amos Sharoni, an Israeli researcher from Bar-Ilan University is working to make existing batteries last 10 times longer and existing processors work 10 times faster using Spintronics.

Spintronics is the basis of electrical systems. We manipulate electronics to give us power that translates into functions like playing a song. "It's all electrons. They have a charge. There is a battery with a plus-minus. But the electrons have another property - their spin, a small magnetic field, pointing up or down," he explains.

"None of the electronics today use this spin property to do anything," says Sharoni. "It's wasted potential. The reason is because even the smallest element of the device is big, and due to this, you lose all the spin information you have. It gets messy. In regular devices - you just lose it - it's like trying to look through fog."

A short video about the University of Tokyo's Ohtani Laboratory spintronics research, which is focused on spin-polarized current and pure spin current:

Professor Russell Cowburn from the Imperial College in London has been awarded €2.8 million to work on spintronics, with the aim of developing new microchips that can store thousands of times more data than today’s microchips.

Professor Cowburn hopes to develop chips that hold many active components stacked on top of each other, allowing more data to be stored in the same sized chip.

Via Media-Newswire

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For fiscal 2010, total revenue increased 20% to $28.1 million from $23.4 million for the prior fiscal year. The increase was due to a 15% increase in product sales and a 50% increase in contract research and development revenue. Net income for fiscal 2010 increased 23% to $12.0 million.

The book provides an introductory review of the concepts in physics of semiconductor heterostructures (quantum wells) and basic problems in spin transport and spin relaxation. Materials discussed in the book are iron and iron-cobalt as conventional ferromagnets, and III-V semiconductors (GaAs, InGaAs, AlGaAs). A detailed guidance is provided on performing and analyzing spin photodiode experiments, in which spin polarized electrons are created via excitation with circularly polarized light, and transferred across the interface (the spin ejection process). The book also addresses the spin injection process, where a fraction of electrons preserve their spin polarization while tunneling through the Schottky barrier, from the FM into the SC (the spin-LED concept). A supplemental chapter addressing magnetic anisotropy properties of such heterostructures and its active role in the process of spin transport is provided. The book contains 119 relevant figures and 6 appendices addressing experimental techniques in electro- and magneto-optics, numerical modeling and nanofabrication of spin diodes. MS PowerPoint slides are available from the author, for lecture and training preparation.

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Spin Transport in Ferromagnet-Semiconductor Heterostructures: Spintronics with Schottky Contact Spin-LEDs and Photodiodes: Materials, Spin Diodes, Experiments and Models

A team of outstanding scientists in the field of modern magnetic nanotechnologies illustrates the state of the art in several areas of advanced magneto-electronic devices, magnetic micro-electromechanical systems and high density information storage technologies. The physics and chemistry of nano-scale systems have made rapid advances and there are real prospects of translating exciting scientific findings into a new generation of processes and high technology products with a potential impact on several industrial sectors.

In particular the development of nano-structured magnetic materials plays a leading role in the increasing miniaturization of devices with superior performances. The application areas considered are:

• "magneto-electronics", where the control of electron spins in magnetic hetero-structures offers new and improved functionalities in devices of integrated digital electronics. Magnetic random access memories, MRAM are among the principal applications for new non-volatile RAM with fast dynamics, toward the pico-, femto-second range.
• "magnetic MEMS" (micro-electro-mechanical systems), which are the integration of mechanical and electro/ferromagnetic elements (micro-actuators and sensors) with conventional electronics MEMS, promise a revolution in several product categories. In fact the proposed integration enables the development of smart products, where sensors can gather information from the environment by measuring thermal, magnetic, electric, mechanical, biological chemical, optical characteristics and the electronic section processes the information and the actuator promotes the action realizing a complete control of the environment.
• "Magnetic recording" is a leading technology in the information storage domain and the most relevant application in the field of magnetics, showing surprising continuous progress over several decades towards the limit of terabit per square inch of areal density.

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Magnetic Nanostructures in Modern Technology: Spintronics, Magnetic MEMS and Recording (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics)

Scientists from Ohio University and the University of Hamburg has captured images of atomic spin in action for the first time. They have used a custom-built microscope and cobalt atoms. The team repositioned individual cobalt atoms on a surface that changed the direction of the electrons' spin. Images captured by the scientists showed that the atoms appeared as a single protrusion if the spin direction was upward, and as double protrusions with equal heights when the spin direction was downward.

Via PhysOrg.