Technical - Page 2

A team of Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) researchers led by Han Suk-hee described the demonstration of a spin-injected field effect transistor, which is based on a semiconducting channel with two ferromagnetic electrodes.

The transistor's basic structure of source, gate and drain is similar to the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) model used for making microprocessors and other integrated circuits. However, Han's transistor is different in that the source and drain are made of ferromagnetic materials and that the injected spins are controlled by gate voltage.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have received a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Center for Chemical Innovation (NSF-CCI) to pursue research in the emerging field of molecular spintronics.

The grant will fund a center for molecular spintronics at NC State and support a research coalition between scientists at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill with the aim of using this technology to develop smaller, faster, more energy-efficient electronic devices with increased storage capability.

Silicon-based semiconductor chips incorporate tiny transistors that manipulate electrons based on their charges. Scientists also are working on ways to use electricity to manipulate the electrons' magnetism, referred to as "spin," but are still searching for the breakthrough that will allow "spintronics" to function at room temperature without losing large amounts of the capability they have at frigid temperatures.

QuantumWise A/S is announcing a new release of its software package for atomic-scale simulations of nanoscale electronic and spintronic devices, Atomistix ToolKit (ATK). This code is able to compute electronic structure and transport properties (e.g. I-V characteristics) of nanoscale structures such as nanotubes, graphene, molecular electronics devices, magnetic tunnel junctions and other magnetic system, interface structures, nanowires, etc.

We're happy to announce a new addition to the Metalgrass site network: Graphene-Info. Graphene is a sheet, one-atom-thick of carbon atom, in a honeycomb crystal lattice. If you use many layers of graphene, stacked one on top of the other, you’ll get Graphite. Graphene has many uses - Spintronics, sensors, ICs (for example a transparent backplane for OLEDs), ultra-capacitors and more.

We hope you'll enjoy the new site...

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

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.

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

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