Magnetoelectronics
enhance memory
Physics World December
2003
A
New Spin on Semiconductors
December 2002 New Technology
University of Tokyo associate professor Tanaka Masaaki describes the revolutionary
advances his lab has made in spin electronics research ELECTRONS are elementary
particles with a negative electrical charge and a magnetic moment, called “spin.”
Spin is a concept from the field of quantum mechanics, and it corresponds to
the term “rotation” in classical mechanics. Electrons never stop rotating, making
them the world’s smallest permanent magnets.
Electron Spins Can
Control Nuclear Spins
AIP Physics News 17-Nov-03 by Phil Schewe, James Riordon, and Ben Stein
Electron spins can control nuclear spins in a semiconductor when trapped in
a very confined space, a recent experimental development which calls upon laser
science, solid-state physics, and nuclear magnetic resonance.
Electrons
Spin Magnetic Fields
Technology Research News October 29, 2003
Electrical devices are powered by one property of electrons—charge. Electrons
are more than just charge, however. Electrons can also be spin up or spin down—properties
analogous to a top spinning clockwise or counterclockwise. Spintronics researchers
are looking for ways to control and use electron spin.
Spin
is the thing
ZDNet UK Rupert Goodwins September 26, 2003
Fundamental changes in basic technology don't come along often, but spintronics
may be the hottest thing since sliced silicon
Theory puts new spin
on IC spin current
By Chappell Brown EE Times September 23, 2003
HANCOCK, N.H. A recent theoretical study of the quantum Hall effect (QHE), a
type of superconductivity that occurs in semiconductors, suggests a new route
to room-temperature quantum computers.
New
Spin for Electronics
Subatomic properties will remake computing.
Future Watch by Gary H. Anthes AUGUST 21, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD )
Spintronics, from "spin transport electronics," isn't entirely new. The spintronic
effect called giant magneto-resistance was introduced by IBM in 1997 in its
GMR disk-read head. As a result, disk capacities have jumped by a factor of
100 in the past five years.
'Spintronics'
could enable a new generation of electronic devices, physicists say
Stanford University 2003-08-11
Theoretical physicists at Stanford and the University of Tokyo think they've
found a way to solve the dissipation problem by manipulating a neglected property
of the electron -- its "spin," or orientation, typically described by its quantum
state as "up" or "down."
Molecules build a bridge
to spintronics
physicsweb 1 August 2003
The prospect of a new generation of devices that harness the spin of electrons
has moved closer following a recent experiment in the US. Min Ouyang and David
Awschalom of the University of California at Santa Barbara have transferred
electron spins across molecular 'bridges' between quantum dots for the first
time. Even better, the pair found that they could transfer the spins most effectively
at room temperature (M Ouyang and D Awschalom 2003 Sciencexpress 1086963).
Spin Currents--Free of Charge
Physics Review Focus 30 May 2003
Electrons not only carry electric charge, they also behave like spinning tops.
And by exploiting a quirk of quantum mechanics, two teams of physicists have
independently produced currents of spin without the currents of electricity
that, until now, have always accompanied them. Physicists have been striving
to develop technologies that would take advantage of currents of electrons all
spinning in the same direction. Such "spintronic" technologies could prove far
more powerful than ordinary electronics.
Semiconductor
spintronics to revolutionize the electronics industry
NanoApex.com San Jose, Calif. -- May 27, 2003
Ongoing research into spintronics, a method aimed at enabling spin-polarized
current flow through semiconductors, is likely to result in a new class of multifunctional
electronics.
Pitt,
UCSB Researchers Discover Way To Control Electron Spin With Electrical Field
Sciencedaily.com 2003-03-03
PITTSBURGH -- The race for smaller, faster, and more powerful computers and
consumer electronics took a new spin as researchers at the University of Pittsburgh
and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) became the first to
control electrons using electrical, rather than magnetic, fields.
Electrical
Control Of Electron Spin Steers Spin-based Technologies Toward Real World
Sciencedaily.com 2003-01-27
Santa Barbara, Calif. -- Researchers at the University of California at Santa
Barbara (UCSB) and at the University of Pittsburgh have provided "proof of concept
that quantum spin information can be locally manipulated using high-speed electrical
circuits,"
FRACTALS ADD NEW
DIMENSION TO STUDY OF TINY ELECTRONICS
The OHIO State University 12-02-02
COLUMBUS, Ohio When it comes to miniature electronics, scientists have seen
the shape of things to come -- and that shape is a fractal.
Scientists use microsope
to view magnetism at atomic level
Ohio University November 06, 2002
Scientists and engineers build the transistors that run televisions, radios
and similar electronic devices based on the moving electric charges of electrons.
But the electron also has another key property: a magnetic "spin" that scientists
believe could be exploited to develop faster, smaller and more efficient devices.
Better
PCs With Plastic Magnets
Wired News 17-Oct-02
An ultrafast, low-cost computer that boots up instantly and safeguards data
in case of a crash may sound like a mythical fairy tale beast, but the idea
behind it comes from less fanciful stuff: the quantum theory of spintronics
combined with plastic magnets. The trick to spintronics, however, is to exploit
the electrons' spin instead of, or in conjunction with, their charge.
Plastic electrons spin
for memory
By Sara Sowah EE Times October 8, 2002
Ohio State University researchers have made nearly all the moving electrons
inside a sample of plastic spin in the same direction — an effect called spin
polarisation that could yield plastic memories.
PLASTIC SHOWS
PROMISE FOR SPINTRONICS, MAGNETIC COMPUTER MEMORY
COLUMBUS, Ohio 24-Sep-02 Researchers at Ohio State University and their colleagues
have expanded the possibilities for a new kind of electronics, known as spintronics.
Quantum Transistor
May Put a New Spin on Spintronics
11-Sep-02
In only a few decades, hand-held calculators powered by silicon chips and transistors
have replaced room-sized mega-computers filled with tubes, cathodes, and miles
of wire. Spin may the next step in miniaturization -- from micro- to nano-electronics.
Photonics
plus Spintronics
September 9, 2002 Physics News Update
First came solid-state electronics, producing the field effect transistor (FET),
in which a tiny voltage applied to a gate enables a much larger current to flow
through a circuit. Next came optoelectronics, producing the light emitting diode
(LED), in which electrons and holes (the spaces vacated by electrons) are made
to combine and produce useful light (unfortunately this does not include silicon,
an infamous non-light-emitter, at least until recently). Then came spintronics,
producing circuit elements such as magnetoresistive sensors, in which an electron
polarization (the direction of an electron's magnetic moment) is an important
variable. Now scientists would like to combine optical and magnetic features
in a single technology.
Putting
a new spin on things
Binghamton University 01-09-02 By Susan E. Barker
Will Quantum
Computing Ever Become a Reality?
NewsFactor Network By Jay Lyman August 20, 2002
Quantum computing could increase computing power exponentially, and, by including
memory with processing, create a computer on a chip.
Improved Spin
Transistor
ISIS August 15, 2002
Researchers at Oxford's Physics Department have developed an improved version
of the "spin transistor", a device which has the principle operating characteristics
of a conventional transistor but, in addition, has a current output which is
also dependent on the strength of the ambient magnetic field. This technology
is suitable for use in areas as diverse as magnetic field or position sensors
and non-volatile memory chips.
Laser
Technique Aids Spintronics
Photonics.com 01-Aug-02
A research group at Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, the Netherlands,
and at IMEC vzw in Louvain, Belgium, has demonstrated an optical technique that
could provide needed materials data for the development of spintronics, leading
to the production of devices based on magnetic spin. Such devices promise advantages
over their electronic analogs.
Disks
set to go ballistic
July 24, 2002 By Eric Smalley, Technology Research News
DNA goes spintronic
23 July 2002
DNA molecules could soon add 'spintronic' effects to their repertoire of surprising
electronic properties. In simulations performed by Michael Zwolak and Massimiliano
Di Ventra of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the US,
the current flowing through DNA molecules jumped by 26% when the spins of the
electrons were flipped. Previous studies have shown that DNA can act as a superconductor
and a semiconductor (M Zwolak and M Di Ventra 2002 Appl. Phys. Lett. 81 925).
Transistors Spin
Toward Quantum Computing
By Jay Lyman NewsFactor Network July 11, 2002
Researchers at the Institute for Microstructural Science in Ottawa, Canada,
have built a spintronic transistor that could play a major role in the quest
for quantum computing, which exploits electron spin to process millions -- or
even billions -- of bits of information, at once.
Data Storage Shrinks
to Nanoscale
By Jay Lyman NewsFactor Network July 1, 2002
Materials researchers at the University at Buffalo in New York have developed
an extremely small, sensitive device that could reduce supercomputer-scale data
storage to the size of a wristwatch.
'SPINTRONICS'
COULD HERALD A NEW AGE IN COMPUTERS
By Roger Highfield The Daily Telegraph, London Small Times. June 27, 2002 The
birthplace of the next computer revolution could be much closer to home than
Japan or Silicon Valley: it may turn out to be a laboratory in South Road, Durham,
within sight of the city's beautiful cathedral.
Ballistic
Magnetoresistance
Physics News June 26, 2002
Bent
wires make cheap circuits
June 26 2002 By Kimberly Patch, Technology Research News
Today's computers use the presence or absence of a flow of electrons to represent
the ones and zeros of binary logic, and they detect this current by sensing
electrical charge. There's more to electrons than charge, however. They also
have spin, a magnetic property similar to the two poles of an ordinary refrigerator
magnet.
Nanospintronics:
A Single-Spin Transistor
Physics News. June 26, 2002
Spintronics is a relatively new field in which the electron's spin, not just
its charge, can be exploited in devices and circuits. The ultimate spintronics
degree of control would come from controlling a circuit at the level of a single
spin.
Magnetic spins to
store quantum information
Nanotechweb. June 21, 2002
Magnets could be the latest materials to be used in quantum information systems
following the discovery of unusual spin effects in a fluorine-based compound.
Tom Rosenbaum of the University of Chicago in the US and colleagues found that
the spins of clusters of atoms in the magnetic compound became aligned – or
coherent – when a magnetic field was applied, in contrast with the behaviour
of similar materials. This coherence persisted for up to ten seconds, and the
researchers say that the clusters could have information ‘imprinted’ on them
(S Ghosh et al 2002 Science 296 2195).
IBM puts new spin on nano-storage
ZDNET. June 11, 2002
IBM researchers have created a storage device that holds up to a trillion bits
of information, or about 25 million textbook pages in a postage stamp-size area,
as the push to find new storage technologies rolls on.
Spin
Moves With Unexpexted Ease From One Semiconductor To Another;
Successful Demonstration Of Spin-Transfer Makes Way For Whole New Technology
Of Spintronics
Science Daily. June 2001 Santa Barbara, Calif. -- Four researchers at the University
of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and at Penn State University in University
Park, Pa., report in the June 14 issue of Nature experiments that show high-efficiency
spin transfer through interfaces between two different semiconductor materials.
The paper "Persistent Sourcing of Coherent Spins for Multifunctional Spintronics"
also announces the discovery of a new "persistent" mode of spin currents that
makes semiconductor reservoirs act, in effect, as "spin batteries."
Spintronics
June 2002 ScientificAmerican.com By David D. Awschalom, Michael E. Flatté and
Nitin Samarth
Microelectronic devices that function by using the spin of the electron are
a nascent multibillion-dollar industry--and may lead to quantum microchips
Voltage
Control of Spin Direction in Magnetic Memory Devices
Argonne National Laboratory. May 2002
"Spintronics" is a fairly recent term, but the concept isn’t so very exotic.
The particles we call electrons have both charge and spin. Conventional electronic
devices use only the charge, while spintronic devices take advantage of both
properties. When the spins of a material’s electrons are aligned along a common
direction, rather than pointing randomly, it is said to be magnetized. Today,
most of the information we deal with is processed and stored magnetically. The
magnetic recording industry, which includes everything from audio and video
products to information storage on computer hard disks, accounts for $150 billion
annually.
Finding The Right
Stuff To Build Spintronic Devices
SpaceDaily. May 2002
SEMICONDUCTING
MATERIAL MIGHT DEVELOP SPINTRONIC DEVICES
HPCwire 102773, 24th of May 2002
Buffalo, NY -- A team of researchers led by University at Buffalo physicists
reported that they have created semiconducting materials that exhibit the key
properties that are essential to the development of semiconductor spintronic
devices.
Semiconducting
Materials Advance 'Spintronics'
By Jay Lyman NewsFactor Network May 20, 2002
Spintronic materials would enable the storage and processing of data on the
same material, a kind of computer on a chip,' University of Buffalo physics
professor Bruce McCombe told NewsFactor. 'This could be a vast improvement over
current electronics.'
Semiconducting
Material May Have The Right Stuff To Develop Spintronic Devices
sciencedaily.com 17-May-02 BUFFALO, N.Y
A team of researchers led by University at Buffalo physicists reported today
that they have created semiconducting materials that exhibit the key properties
that are essential to the development of semiconductor spintronic devices.
Spintronics
Physics World April 2002
Devices that exploit the spin of the electron promise to revolutionize microelectronics
once polarized electrons can be injected efficiently into semiconductors at
room temperature.
Magnetism controls
new single-molecule electronic device.
Nature. 19 April 2002 PHILIP BALL
Researchers eager to use individual molecules as the components of ultra-small
electronic circuits and computers have put a new spin on their ambitious goal.
Spintronics gets serious
Physics Web. April 2002
Spintronic devices, which harness the spin of the electron as well as its charge,
could be a step closer following recent experiments on 'spin valves'. Physicists
in the US have changed the spins of electrons travelling through a single molecule
for the first time, proving that spintronics is compatible with the emerging
field of molecular electronics. Meanwhile, a group in the Netherlands has reversed
the sign of the output voltage of a device by changing the spins of the electrons
flowing through it.
Spintronics
Physics World 01-Apr-02
Devices that exploit the spin of the electron promise to revolutionize microelectronics
once polarized electrons can be injected efficiently into semiconductors at
room temperature.
SCIENTISTS
SUGGEST WAY TO PUT NEW SPIN ON QUANTUM COMPUTING
By Carl T. Hall San Francisco Chronicle Dec. 10, 2001
Some radically new ways of building computers are starting to take shape as
scientists venture ever deeper into the weird realm of quantum mechanics. A
team of researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara has taken
a key step by suggesting for the first time a practical way to bring the elusive
phenomenon known as "electron spin" under precise control.
Spintronics
Americanscientist.org 01-Dec-01 By Sankar Das Sarma
A new class of device based on electron spin, rather than on charge, may yield
the next generation of microelectronics
'Spin' Could Be Quantum
Boost for Computers
GeorgeTown University 21-Aug-01 By Kenneth Chang
Electronic devices like radios and computers work by shuttling around the electric
charge of electrons. Hence, the "electron" in "electronics." But besides their
electric charge, electrons also have a less exploited property: "spin," an angular
momentum that makes electrons act like tiny bar magnets. Researchers are beginning
to tap into electrons' magnetic side as part of an emerging field known as spintronics.
ELECTRONIC
SPIN DOCTORS ATTRACTED TO A NEW MAGNETIC MEMORY SOLUTION
By Candace Stuart Small Times Senior Writer Aug. 6, 2001
Spintronics? No, it's not the name of a '60s pop band, but it is a small tech
approach that is expected to eliminate the need to boot up mobile phones, computers
and other electronic devices while making make them faster and more powerful.
Injection of spin for
electronics 01-Aug-01
New
Magnetic Semiconductor Material Spins Hope For Quantum Computing
Sciencedaily.com 01-Aug-01
The current generation of computers uses an electron charge to store and process
information, but this approach limits the ultimate speed and storage density
that can be achieved. Magnetic storage, such as that found in a computer hard
drive, relies on the magnetic properties created by an electron spin. However,
if an electron? spin can be harnessed within a semiconductor, the potential
exists to create entirely new ways of computing and signal processing that will
greatly increase speed and data storage densities.
Spin
Moves With Unexpexted Ease From One Semiconductor To Another; Successful Demonstration
Of Spin-Transfer Makes Way For Whole New Technology Of Spintronics
Sciencedaily.com 18-Jun-01
Santa Barbara, Calif. -- Four researchers at the University of California at
Santa Barbara (UCSB) and at Penn State University in University Park, Pa., report
in the June 14 issue of Nature experiments that show high-efficiency spin transfer
through interfaces between two different semiconductor materials.
Semiconductors put
spin in spintronics
Physics World 01-Mar-00
The spin, however, is one of the strangest properties of particles. In simple
terms, we can think of the spin as an internal rotation of the electron, but
it has no classical counterpart. The spin is connected to a quantized magnetic
moment and hence acts as a microscopic magnet. Thus the electron spin can adopt
one of two directions ("up" or "down") in a magnetic field. The spin plays no
role in conventional electronics and the current in any semiconductor device
is made up of a mixture of electrons with randomly oriented spins.
