May 2015

Researchers from Japan's Kyoto University and Osaka University have demonstrated that spin currents can travel more than half a micrometer on a thin doped-germanium sheet. Up until now this has only been demonstrated in very low temperatures (below 225 Kelvin).

Germanium has a higher electron mobility than silicon and a particular lattice symmetry that should reduce much of the electrons spin relaxation. But the material is not magnetic and so measuring spin transport is not easy because spin currents have to be created in a magnetic material and injected into germanium.