October 2010

Researchers from the University of Florence, Italy have managed to bound a single molecule magnet (SMM) to a gold surface, whilst retaining the magnet's properties. in SMMs, each single molecule can be individually magnetized, but the magnetization of the individual molecules is dictated by its orientation - which is difficult to control. The new method can be used to adopt an orientation in a monolayer.

This achievement can be useful for Spintronics, and also for testing ideas using quantum physics.

Researchers from the University of California, Riverside successfully achieved tunneling-spin-injection into Graphene. The researchers inserted a nanometer-thick insulating layer, known as a tunnel barrier in between the ferromagnetic electrode and the graphene layer. They found that the spin injection efficiency increased dramatically. A 30-fold increase, actually.

The team also made an unexpected discovery that explains short spin lifetimes of electrons in graphene that have been reported by other experimental researchers. People usually assume that the Hanle measurement accurately measures the spin lifetime, but this result shows that it severely underestimates the spin lifetime when the ferromagnet is touching the graphene, said Wei Han, the first author of the research paper and a graduate student. This is good news because it means the true spin lifetime in graphene must be longer than reported previously potentially a lot longer.

Researchers from the Universities of New South Wales, Melbourne and Aalto (Finland) has developed a way to reliably read the spin of a single electron. The method relies on using single atoms of phosphorus embedded in silicon.

Researchers from Ohio State University says that Spintronics-based chips that run on heat only and are able to process data are possible. The researchers observed that Gallium Manganese can convert heat into spin. They plan to combine spintronics and thermo-electricity(converting heat into electricity) to create chips that run on heat.

Such a "thermo-spintronics" device can be mounted on regular microprocessors - and 'feed' off its waste heat. This will function as both a heat sink and a second processor. This kind of device is "a long way off" though. This can be very useful in large data centers as cooling the heat is a major cost (in 2006, the US spent $4.5 billion powering and cooling down data centers...).