A grad student from the University of Michigan published the video below, giving a nice introduction to spintronics and his own research that uses ultrafast laser pulses to measure spin lifetime and understand how electron spins behave in solid materials.
Researchers from the Energy Departmentâs National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), quite accidentally, discovered that perovskite materials, grown using solution processing, exhibit the optical Stark effect at room temperatures.
The NREL team used the Stark effect to remove the degeneracy of the excitonic spin states within the perovskite sample. The optical Stark effect can be used to create promising technologies, including the potential to be used as an ultrafast optical switch. In addition, it can be used to control or address individual spin states, which is needed for spin-based quantum computing.
Researchers from Colorado State University demonstrated a new approach to store information using electron spin. Using a thin film of barium ferrite (a magnetic insulator), the researchers managed to switch magnetic moments. This is the first time an insulator was used for such an application.
This could be a major spintronics breakthrough, as an insulator material may enable simpler and more efficient storage medium. In an insulator, perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) originates from the intrinsic magneto-crystalline anisotropy of the insulator, rather than interfacial anisotropy in a metal.Â