December 2013

2013 is soon over, and it is time for our end-of-the year post. Here are the top 10 stories posted on Spintronics-Info in the past year, ranked by popularity:

1. The world's first 3D Spintronics chip developed at Cambridge (Feb 3)
2. Power Spintronics: converting magnetic energy to electric voltage efficiently and directly (Jan 4)
3. Researchers detect the electronic spin state of graphene contacted to a magnetic metal (Jul 6)
4. Two German universities collaborate on Spintronics commercialization research projects (Feb 7)
5. SRC and DARPA grant $28 million to open a new Spintronics research center (Jan 18)
6. Researcher confirm the existence of electron-generated magnetic fields (May 9)
7. Spin information can travel much further than thought before (Jan 27)
8. Spin Hall magnetoresistance discovered using an insulating magnet (May 15)
9. Experts explain their spintronics research (Oct 13)
10. New magnetic switching technology will enable terahertz memories (Apr 10)

I wish all our readers a happy Christmas and a happy new 2014!

Professor Laurens Molenkamp from the University of Würzburg has been awarded a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation (DFG). This prestigious award comes with a €2.5 million (almost $3.5 million).

Laurens Molenkamp is regarded as one of the fathers of semiconductor spintronics. He was also the first researchers to succeed in the experimental realization of topological insulators.

Researchers from the US, Singapore, Brazil and Ireland have theoretically shown that if you fold a graphene sheet in a fin-like structure and expose it to a magnetic field you open up a bandgap. This will also produce spin-polarized current, which should make it useful in Spintronics applications.

The researchers say that this folding can be easily achieved by depositing graphene on a substrate with periodic trenches.