March 2013

Researchers from the University of Arizona and the University of Kaiserslautern demonstrated how organic molecules interact with the magnetic electrode in so-called spintronic devices. Organic Spintronics is interesting because organic semiconductors have several advantages as they can be manufactured cheaply and can be processes at low temperatures.

Using ultra-fast, time-resolved measurements probing the interface between an organic semiconductor and a magnetic metal, the researchers showed that spin controls the time an electron stay trapped in the molecule. This shows that the organic molecule interacts with the magnetic electrode in a spin-dependent way. This is called a spin-filter effect.

On Thursday April 4 (10:00 local time, Finland's Aalto University), Dr. Reinoud Lavrijsen from the Eindhoven University of Technology will give a seminar on 'Shifting Spintronics into the Third Dimension'. Dr. Reinoud will give an introduction to Spintronics and will also talk about his work with researchers from Cambridge on 3D spintronics chips.

Researchers from the Swedish KTH Royal Institute Technology have managed to create a magnetic Soliton (spin torque-generated nano-droplet). This magnetic nano-droplet was theorized over 30 years ago, but was finally created now. The researchers say that such devices can have many applications, for example to replace microwave technology used in mobile phones with a much smaller, efficient and cheap component.

Solitons (solitary waves that behave like particles and retain their shape when moving at a constant speed) have been used before for long distance, high speed information transmission. This is the first time a Soliton was created in a magnetic environment. The droplet the researchers developed is about 50-100 m in size. At their center, magnetization points towards the opposite direction, both against the surrounding spin (a quantum physical property) and the applied magnetic field.

Experiments have shown that hole spins in p-type silicon can be polarized and retain their polarization for a surprisingly long time. Now researchers from Osaka University have performed a new experiment that directly probes the spin of the holes as they travel through p-type silicon. They have shown that holes in p-type silicon can preserve spin-based information and transport it over distances much longer than previously thought, and it means that p-type semiconductors can be used for spin transport and be the basis of Spintronics devices.

The researchers separated the process of spin injection and detection, and this allowed them to probe the spin of the holes after travelling through the material. They used the spin-pumping method to inject spins into their silicon sample, and did not apply an electric field, so the injected spins spread out under the injection contact by spin diffusion.

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a new microscope, called a heterodyne magneto-optic microwave microscope (H-MOMM) that can measure the collective dynamics of elecrons spins. The microscope can measure the spin in individual magnets as small as 100 nanometers in diameter.

The NIST researchers used the H-MOMM to quantify, for the first time, the spin relaxation process—or damping—in individual nanomagnets. The results suggest that designing spintronic devices to have uniform spin waves could dramatically reduce the energy required to write a bit. They say that these results are "groundbreaking".