'Spintronic' Devices in the Making

Dryice · Jan 27, 2011

Graphene and 'spintronics' combo looks promising

A team of physicists has taken a big step toward the development of useful graphene spintronic devices. The physicists, from the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Science and Technology of China, present their findings in the American Institute of Physics' Applied Physics Letters.

Graphene, a two-dimensional crystalline form of carbon, is being touted as a sort of "Holy Grail" of materials. It boasts properties such as a breaking strength 200 times greater than steel and, of great interest to the semiconductor and data storage industries, electric currents that can blaze through it 100 times faster than in silicon.

Spintronic devices are being hotly pursued because they promise to be smaller, more versatile, and much faster than today's electronics. "Spin" is a quantum mechanical property that arises when a particle's intrinsic rotational momentum creates a tiny magnetic field. And spin has a direction, either "up" or "down." The direction can encode data in the 0s and 1s of the binary system, with the key here being that spin-based data storage doesn't disappear when the electric current stops.

"There is strong research interest in spintronic devices that process information using electron spins, because these novel devices offer better performance than traditional electronic devices and will likely replace them one day," says Kwok Sum Chan, professor of physics at the City University of Hong Kong "Graphene is an important material for spintronic devices because its electron spin can maintain its direction for a long time and, as a result, information stored isn't easily lost."

It is, however, difficult to generate a spin current in graphene, which would be a key part of carrying information in a graphene spintronic device. Chan and colleagues came up with a method to do just that. It involves using spin splitting in monolayer graphene generated by ferromagnetic proximity effect and adiabatic (a process that is slow compared to the speed of the electrons in the device) quantum pumping. They can control the degree of polarization of the spin current by varying the Fermi energy (the level in the distribution of electron energies in a solid at which a quantum state is equally likely to be occupied or empty), which they say is very important for meeting various application requirements.
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I'm pretty excited about the advancements quantum mechanics/computers could bring to society.

Felt · Jan 28, 2011

whole new meaning to efficiency
interesting article!

EDIT: saw this on PBS two nights ago. whoot basic cable

Psyents · Jan 28, 2011

When you "spin" you go up and down???? Sounds like Disc Shaped Aircraft are closer than we think???

Thunderstruck · Jan 28, 2011

Psyents said:

When you "spin" you go up and down???? Sounds like Disc Shaped Aircraft are closer than we think???
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i don't think you got what the article was saying. It's in no way connected with disc shaped anything, or aircraft.

It is very cool though, thanks for posting! We are quickly getting to know about quantum effects and how we can use them to our advantage. Although it does seem we are a long way off from having everyday devices use these effects, mainly due to them needing to be very very cold to work properly. It's all about the room temp. superconductors.

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'Spintronic' Devices in the Making

Dryice Hail Trump, Hail Victory!

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'Spintronic' Devices in the Making

Dryice Hail Trump, Hail Victory!

Felt dangerously impersonal Gold Member

Psyents V-AK

Thunderstruck Registered User

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Felt dangerously impersonal
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