July 2013

Graphene is a promising Spintronics material, and a lot of research is dedicated to this new material. Detecting the electronic spin state of the material is not easy. Now researcher from Japan's Advanced Science Research Center, the Atomic Energy Agency and the National Institute for Materials Science developed a way to do it using a spin-polarized metastable helium beam.

The researchers also found out that in conduction electrons of graphene contacted to nickel, spin polarization occurs with the same orientation as the spin of the nickel.

Researchers from Puerto Rico and China discovered that ethylene (C₂H₄) is the ideal terminal for zigzag graphene nanoribbons (zGNRs) - if you want to preserve the edge magnetism. This new research paves the way towards using zGNRs for Spintronics applications.;