September 2006

A UK scientist has been awarded the Degussa European Science-to-Business Award 2006 for his pioneering work on 'spintronic 'microchips. With their ability to increase the capacity of data storage by 100 times, the new microchips look set to revolutionise modern technology.

According to the Professor, his research has proven that spintronic microchips are a workable proposition which have huge implications for the way everyday electronics devices work. Currently, storing large amounts of data requires the use of a hard disk, which can be bulky and which needs access to a large battery power source. Spintronic microchips would mean that portable devices such as mobile phones and MP3 players would be able to store vast quantities of image, audio and video files, whilst remaining very small and light.

At five volumes and approximately, 2,500 pages, University of California, Riverside Electrical Engineering Professor Alexander Balandin’s handbook on nanotechnology is a big book about the tiniest of things.

The volumes were broken down into fundamental aspects of the field. The first volume deals with quantum dots, nanowires and nano-assemblies. The second volume covers nanofabrication and Nanoscale characterization, while volume three deals with spintronics and nanoelectronics. The fourth volume covers nanophotonics and optoelectronics. The final volume examines nanodevices and circuits.

Physicists in the US are the first to detect the spin Hall effect at room temperature, in what could be an important development in the quest for a practical source of spin-polarized electrons for spintronic devices.

David Awschalom and colleagues at the Center for Spintronics and Computation at the University of California, Santa Barbara observed the current-induced spin-polarization of electrons and the spin Hall effect in thin surface layers of ZnSe.

The 'spin Hall' is a spin current flowing in a transverse direction to the charge current in a non-magnetic material and in the absence of an applied magnetic field. The result is a measurable accumulation of “spin up” and “spin down” electrons at opposite edges of the conducting channel. 

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Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have devised a potentially groundbreaking theory demonstrating how to control the spin of particles without using superconducting magnets.

"Our research illuminates a new pathway for generating and manipulating the spin in semiconductors," stated Roland Winkler Physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. "This is important, because the use of bulky superconducting magnets would be impractical in most devices."

The physicists theorize that spin can be induced and manipulated by running a current through gallium arsenide, a common semiconductor, in what is known as spin-3/2 hole systems, which previously have been little studied. Hole systems are "missing electrons," while the fraction 3/2 refers to the magnitude of the spin. Spin-3/2 hole systems are created in semiconductors by "doping" — introducing impurities that have one less electron compared to the host material.