June 2016

Researchers from Japan's International center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) developed a new low-current spintronic device. The device can be used to control magnetism at a lower current compared to other spintronics devices.

The new device is simple in structure, and it combines a solid electrolyte with a magnetic material. The researchers believe that such a device could in the future be used to make a high-density very low-power memory device.

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Researchers at Tohoku University managed to find the origin and the mechanism of ferromagnetism in Mn-doped GaAs. This phenomonon has been puzzling researchers for over 20 years, and this new explanation may help to accelerate the development of spintronic devices made from such materials.

Mn-doped GaAs crystals exhibit characteristics and properties of both semiconductor and magnet. It is possible to use an electric field to control the magnetism in such materials - which makes them very appealing candidates for spintronic devices.

The Graphene Flagship, the $1 billion EU graphene research initiative, includes a Spintronics Work Package - the aims to explore graphene's role in spintronics.

• HiMagGraphene: Atomic-scale control of graphene magnetism using hydrogen atoms
• iSpinText: Induced Spin Textures in van der Waals Heterostructures
• SOgraph: Tailoring Spin-Orbit effects in Graphene for spin-orbitronic applications
• TAILSPIN: Tailoring spin-interactions in graphene nanoribbons for ballistic fully spin-polarized devices
• Trans2DTMD: Theoretical investigation of electronic transport in functionalized 2D transition metal dichalcogenides

Mark Stiles, from the NIST's Center for Nanoscale science and technology, gave an interesting lecture titled "Spin Current: the Torque Wrench of Spintronics" in which he discussed spintronics challenges, especially for spin-torque MRAM devices:

Researchers from TU Wien designed a method to create extremely strong spin currents using ultra-short laser pulses.

Using computer simulations, the researchers discovered that when short laser pulses hit a thin layer of nickel on a silicon substrate, the electrons accelerate toward the silicon, which builds an electric field on the interface of the two materials. This stops the current, but the spin is still transported. the spin-up electrons move freely, while the spin-down electrons have a much higher probability of being scattered at the nickel atoms. This creates many spin-up electrons in the silicon - effectively creating a spin current in the silicon.