Spintronics-Info: the spintronics experts

Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie Institute demonstrate how it is possible to induce a magnetic order on a small region of a material by using a small electric field, instead of commonly used magnetic field.

Te researchers used a wedge-shaped polycrystalline iron thin film deposited on top of a BaTiO₃ substrate (a well-known ferroelectric and ferroelastic material). Given their small size, the magnetic moments of the iron nanograins are disordered with respect to each other, this state is known as superparamagnetism.

Researchers NTU, NUS, A*STAR and the Los Alamos National Lab have demonstrated that it is possible to inject an ultra-short pulse of spin current (less than a picosecond) from a metal to a semiconductor in a very efficient way.

The researchers used a short laser pulse on cobalt (a magnetic material) - which generated a spin-polarized "swarm" of excited electrons. The spin-polarized electrons travel outside of the material - into adjacent materials. This creates an extremely efficient spin injection.

EU's Graphene Flagship project researchers fabricated graphene-based spintronics devices that utilize both electron charge and spin at room temperature.

The researchers demonstrated the spin’s feasibility for bridging distances of up to several micrometres - which they say could open the door to single-chip devices that integrate logic and memory.

The Spintronics-Info team takes pleasure in recommending our new book - The Perovskite Handbook. This book gives a comprehensive introduction to perovskite materials, applications and industry. Perovskites offer a myriad of exciting properties and has great potential for several industry -including the spintronics one.

We believe that any spintronics professional would find that perovskite materials are an area of focus that should not be ignored. The promising perovskite industry is currently at a tipping point and on the verge of mass adoption and commercialization and the first display-related perovskites are already reaching the market.

Researchers from the University of Utah developed two spintronics devices based on perovskite materials. The researchers use these new devices to demonstrate the high potential of perovksites for spintronics systems. This is a followup to the exciting results announced in 2017 by the same group that showed advantages of perovskites for spintronics.

The researchers use an organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite material that has a heavy lead atom that features strong spin-orbit coupling and a long injected spin lifetime.The first device is a spintronic LED which works with a magnetic electrode instead of an electron-hole electrode. The perovskite LED lights up with circularly polarized electroluminescence.

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg have succeeded to produce spin wave overtones for the first time, which could enable faster wireless data communication based on spintronics devices.

Spintronic oscillators are devices in which spin waves are used to generate microwave signals in the gigahertz range. The new research shows how it is possible to produce spintronic oscillators that strengthen spin wave signals in several steps. This makes it possible to generate very high microwave frequencies with short wavelengths for use in spintronics and magnonics.

As 2018 is coming to an end, it is nice to take a look at the year that passed with its interesting spintronics related research activities and advances.

Here are the top 10 stories posted on Spintronics-Info in 2018, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

1. New video introduces the spintronics research performed at the University of Tohoku (Mar 5)
2. Video lecture - Spin Conversion Phenomena in Spintronics (Apr 8)
3. Zero-Field Switching effect discovered in cobalt-iron-boron (Mar 21)
4. Researchers develop a magnons-based spin transistor (Mar 2)
5. Researchers discover a metallic antiferromagnet with a large magneto-optic Kerr effect (Jan 30)
6. Introduction to perovskite materials (Mar 28)
7. Researchers develop a Magnon Spin Valve (Mar 18)
8. Researchers develop an all-electric method to measure the spin texture of topological insulators (Apr 27)
9. Ohio State University's Prof. Kawakami discusses spintronics in 2D materials (Jun 10)
10. Researchers manage to connect magnetic porphyrin molecules to graphene nanoribbons (Feb 19)