October 2007

Silicon Can Work For New-Age Spintronics Applications

In a rapid follow-up to their achievement as the first to demonstrate how an electron's spin can be electrically injected, controlled and detected in silicon, electrical engineers from the University of Delaware and Cambridge NanoTech now show that this quantum property can be transported a marathon distance in the world of microelectronics-- through an entire silicon wafer.

The finding confirms that silicon--the workhorse material of present-day electronics--now can be harnessed up for new-age spintronics applications.

In Appelbaum's lab at UD, the team fabricated a device that injected high-energy, âhotâ electrons from a ferromagnet into the silicon wafer. Another hot-electron structure (made by bonding two silicon wafers together with a thin-film ferromagnet) detected the electrons on the other side.

âElectron spin has a direction, like 'up' or 'down,' â Appelbaum said. âIn silicon, there are normally equal numbers of spin-up and -down electrons. The goal of spintronics is to use currents with most of the electron spins oriented, or polarized, in the same direction.â

Researchers show new way of controlling magnetic memory

US scientists have come up with a new mechanism that would control magnetic memory of the computers to enable more accurately write and store information in the hard drives. The new technology will switch a magnetic nanoparticle without any magnetic field.

The latest research now aims at empowering computers with magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM). In MRAM, data is stored in magnetic storage elements that consist of two layers; each one is separated by a thin non-magnetic spacer.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 27,2007

NVE Corporation Reports Second Quarter Results, no MRAM news

Product sales for the quarter increased 14% over the prior-year quarter to $4.31 million from $3.78 million. Total revenue, consisting of product sales and contract research and development revenue, increased 14% to $5.00 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 from $4.40 million in the prior-year quarter. Net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 increased 28% to $1.64 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, compared to $1.28 million, or $0.27 per share, for the prior-year quarter.

For the first six months of fiscal 2008, product sales increased 26% to $8.58 million from $6.83 million for the first six months of fiscal 2007. Total revenue increased 21% to $9.71 million for the first half of fiscal 2008 from $8.03 million for the prior-year period. Net income for the first half of fiscal 2008 was $3.23 million, or $0.67 per diluted share compared to $2.18 million, or $0.45 per diluted share, for the first half of fiscal 2007.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 18,2007

Nobel prize for Giant Magnetoresistance discovery

The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to the German solid state physicist Prof. Dr. Peter GrÃ¼nberg from the Helmholtz Research Centre in JÃ¼lich. GrÃ¼nberg shares the award with his colleague Albert Fert (Paris-Sud University) for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance. In 1988, both scientists discovered this physical effect independently of each other.

The Giant Magnetoresistance is a quantum effect, which appears in layered structures of magnetic materials. The effect is used today in nearly every hard disk read-out head, as it allows the storage of extremely densely-packed information. The storage capacity of hard disks has therefore increased way beyond the gigabyte barrier since the mid 1990s. In addition, GrÃ¼nbergâs discovery laid the groundwork for the new research field of spintronics, which exploits the quantum spin states of electrons for usage in micro as well as nanoelectronics. âThe fact that GrÃ¼nberg has now received the Nobel Prize does not only please me personally, but also shows that the Helmholtz Association provides an excellent working environment for extraordinary researchers,â says Mlynek.