June 2015

Researchers from the University of Chicago managed to line-up nuclear spins in a consistent and controllable way, on silicon-carbide, a high-performance and practical material. The technique uses light to polarize the spins - and is performed at room temperature.

Nuclear spins are normally randomly oriented, and the known methods of aligning them are complicated - and not entirely reliable. This is mostly because the spin of a nucleus is tiny - about 1,000 times smaller than the spin of an electron. The new technique is relatively simple and manages to align the spin of more than 99% spins in a Silicon Carbide nuclei.

Researchers from the University of Bath and international collaborators have developed a technology that enabled them to polarize valleys in silicon in the steady state, and demonstrated that valley polarization can make spin polarization easier. This may have useful implications towards building spintronics devices.

Valleytronics aims to exploit the valley degree of freedom in thin 2D materials (such as graphene) and use it to perform calculations - and this is the first time valleys are controlled.