Fullerene used to preserve electron spin over long distances

Researchers from Tohoku University have shown that electron spins can be preserved for long distances using optimized organic compounds. This is because organic compounds are made mostly from carbon, in which the spin–orbit interaction is quite small. Using fullerene (C60) films the researchers made devices in which electrons traveled up to 110 nm at room temperature while preserving their spin.

The researchers used fullerence because there's no hydrogen in it (common in other organic materials) and this helps reduce the hyper fine interactions between electron and nuclear spins that can induce spin-flipping events. They built an organic spin valve in which two ferromagnetic electrons are placed in contact with an organic layer.

In January 2013 researchers from the Japanese RIKEN institute showed that spin information in some materials can travel much further than previously thought using two magnetic contacts to inject the spin signal into a thin silver wire, which enhances the amount of spin polarization present in the wire.

Posted: Apr 01,2013 by Ron Mertens