Spintronics-Info - Page 3

Today we launched our very own twitter account. So now anyone can follow us on twitter to get all spintronics news directly to his feed. Just click here for our twitter page.

If you want to stay updated on spintronics news, you can also of course get our weekly newsletter or follow us on Facebook or LinkedIn.

I'm happy to announce that Spintronics-Info's infrastructure was updated today. Spintronics-Info is based on the open-source Drupal CMS, and we updated from version 6 to version 7. As a reader you will not find many differences, but hopefully it will enable a more stable, safe and quick web site.

If you do find any bugs or glitches, please let us know.

2013 is soon over, and it is time for our end-of-the year post. Here are the top 10 stories posted on Spintronics-Info in the past year, ranked by popularity:

1. The world's first 3D Spintronics chip developed at Cambridge (Feb 3)
2. Power Spintronics: converting magnetic energy to electric voltage efficiently and directly (Jan 4)
3. Researchers detect the electronic spin state of graphene contacted to a magnetic metal (Jul 6)
4. Two German universities collaborate on Spintronics commercialization research projects (Feb 7)
5. SRC and DARPA grant $28 million to open a new Spintronics research center (Jan 18)
6. Researcher confirm the existence of electron-generated magnetic fields (May 9)
7. Spin information can travel much further than thought before (Jan 27)
8. Spin Hall magnetoresistance discovered using an insulating magnet (May 15)
9. Experts explain their spintronics research (Oct 13)
10. New magnetic switching technology will enable terahertz memories (Apr 10)

I wish all our readers a happy Christmas and a happy new 2014!

2012 is soon over, now's the time to reflect back... here are the top 10 stories posted on Spintronics-Info in the past year, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

1. New spin valve "RAM" provides indefinite number of re-write cycles (Mar 8)
2. A new class of topological insulators discovered, may have spintronics applications (Feb 14)
3. The spintronic properties of gallium manganese arsenide finally explained (Feb 29)
4. Intel's new neuromorphic chip design uses multi-input lateral spin valves and memristors (Jun 19)
5. Researcher develop an electrical switch for magnetic current (Mar 1)
6. Recent progress in silicon spintronics presentation (Jan 27)
7. Graphene and Cobalt combined to make a material in which spin can be set (May 6)
8. Buckyballs for Spintronics research granted €1.5 million from the ERC (Jan 22)
9. New plastic-based spintronics magnetic field sensor developed, is "dirt cheap" (Jun 15)
10. Researchers managed to optically control magnetism (Apr 10)

Here's for an awesome 2013. May you all enjoy the holidays!

Researcher Michel de Jong of the NanoElectronics group (MESA+) in the University of Twente (Netherlands) received a €1.5 million grant from the European Research Council to fund his Spintronics work (this is his second ERC grant). Michel de Jong is focusing on organic materials, in particular in Buckyballs (spherical C60 molecules held together by weak bonds) sandwiched between two magnetic materials.

Michel explains that these molecules have very little effect on electron spin, which is a great advantage as it enables them to store spin information for much longer periods of time than silicon. Buckyballs have also been used to create Graphene Quantum Dots.

Today we updated our logo for Spintronics-Info, here's the new design:

We hope you like it. We also think that it removes some clutter and makes our page easier on the eyes...

UCLA has received a $8.4 million grant from DARPA to research ultra-low-power, non-volatile logic technologies. This is the same DARPA project that also awarded a contract to Grandis on the same subject a couple of weeks ago.

The UCLA researchers are aiming to develop a prototype non-volatile logic circuit, which could lead to the development of new classes of ultra–low-power, high-performance electronics. The research program will explore three technical areas: the behavior of nanoscale magnetic materials; the fabrication and testing of a non-volatile logic circuit; and the development of novel circuits and circuit-design tools.

The project will be managed at UCLA by research associate Pedram Khalili and will be led under principal investigators Kang Wang and Alex Khitun. It will involved researchers from UCLA, UC Irvine, Yale University and the University of Massachusetts.

Dr. Amos Sharoni, an Israeli researcher from Bar-Ilan University is working to make existing batteries last 10 times longer and existing processors work 10 times faster using Spintronics.

Spintronics is the basis of electrical systems. We manipulate electronics to give us power that translates into functions like playing a song. "It's all electrons. They have a charge. There is a battery with a plus-minus. But the electrons have another property - their spin, a small magnetic field, pointing up or down," he explains.

"None of the electronics today use this spin property to do anything," says Sharoni. "It's wasted potential. The reason is because even the smallest element of the device is big, and due to this, you lose all the spin information you have. It gets messy. In regular devices - you just lose it - it's like trying to look through fog."

Spintronics-Info was upgraded today (if anyone is interested, we upgraded to Drupal 6.x from 5.8) Most of the changes are infrastructure related so you won't notice much, but hopefully the site should be faster now, more stable and more secure.

If you do find any bugs, glitches or you have any comments, please let us know!

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...