Spintronics-Info: the spintronics experts

Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science have developed an all-solid redox device composed of magnetite (Fe₃O₄) thin film and a solid electrolyte containing lithium ions that successfully manipulated the magnetization angle at room temperature.

The researchers say they have developed a surprisingly simple yet efficient strategy to manipulate the magnetization angle in magnetite, a typical ferromagnetic material. This magnetization rotation is caused by the change of spin-orbit coupling due to electron injection into a ferromagnet. The new approach leverages a reversible electrochemical reaction.

Researchers from the University of New South wales (UNSW) discovered that removing random doping in quantum electronic devices dramatically improves their reproducibility. This could be highly useful in creating future quantum spintronics devices.

In their paper, the researchers show that the reproducibility problem in quantum devices comes from the random spatial position of dopants in quantum devices. This is why removing the dopants has such a big effect.

An international group of researchers, led by the CNRS, developed a new technique that can switch magnetization in only six picoseconds, which is almost 100-times faster than current state-of-the-art spintronics. The new technique is also highly efficient.

The experimental design used to create the ultra-fast magnetization switching included an optical pump directed at the photoconductive switch, which converts the light into 6-picosecond electric pulses. The structure guides these pulses toward the magnet. When the pulses reach the magnet, they trigger the magnetization switching.

The European Research Council (ERC) granted a €1.9 million new project to Prof. Can Onur Avci, in the field of magnetic insulators for spintronics devices. Prof. Aci will move to ICMAB and be integrated at the ICMAB Research Line 3 (RL3) “Oxides for new generation electronics”. The activities of this research center span from multiferroics, flexoelectric materials oxide photonics and spintronics to ferroelectric memory arrays and GHz-THz magnetoelectrics.

The awarded project is called MAGNEPIC, or “Magnetic Insulators: An Enabling Platform for Innovative Spintronic Concepts”. The project full goal is to study magnetic insulators to develop novel device concepts and explore emerging physical phenomena that could be useful for future spintronics research and applications.

Researchers from Exeter University, in collaboration with the Universities of Oxford, California Berkeley, and the Advanced and Diamond Light Source have experimentally demonstrated that high frequency alternating spin currents can be transmitted by, and sometimes amplified within, thin layers of antiferromagnetic NiO.

The researchers say that these results demonstrate that the spin current in thin NiO layers is mediated by evanescent spin waves, a mechanism akin to quantum mechanical tunnelling. This could lead to more efficient future wireless communication technology based on such antiferromagnetic spintronics devices.

The european Graphene Flagship project has announced 16 newly-funded graphene FLAG-ERA projects. These projects which will become Partnering Projects of the Graphene Flagship – receiving around €11 million in funding overall.

Two of these projects will investigate the promising properties of graphene for spintronics. The SOgraphMEM project will test specific materials for a novel branch of spintronics called spin-orbitronics, while the DIMAG project will fabricate new layered magnetic materials with optimal characteristics for spintronics applications.

Researchers from NYU and IBM Research have created a spintronics device from a ferromagnetic conductor and discovered that current flow in the conductor can produce a spin polarization that is in a direction set by its magnetic moment.

This discovery means that magnetic moment direction can be set in just about any desired direction to then set the spin polarization - this is not possible using the contours of the spin Hall effect in non-magnetic heavy metals.