March 2017

Researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation developed a measurement instrument for plasmonics and spintronics. The so-called "spin-resolved oscilloscope" is seen as a step towards future "spin-plasmonics" devices that can achieve ultra-high-speed and low-energy-consumption.

The spin-resolved oscilloscope is composed of a spin filter and nanometer-scale time-resolved charge detectors. The spin filter separates the spin-up and -down electrons, while the time-resolved charge detector measures the waveforms of the charge-density waves. By combining these spintronic and plasmonic devices, the spin-resolved oscilloscope is established. The new device enables the measurement of the waveforms of both charge and spin signals in electronic devices. The charge signal is the total charge of the spin-up and -down electron densities, while the spin signal is the difference between the spin-up and -down electron densities.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota developed a magnetic tunnel junction that is switched by using a short pulse of light. The switch operation takes only one trillionth of a second - which makes this the world's fastest magnetic tunnel junction.

To create this device, the researchers used ITO to create a transparent electrode on top of an ally made from called gadolinium, iron and cobalt. This material is already known to be switchable using light pulses.

Xavier Marti, the CTO at IGSresearch discusses real world applications of antiferromagnetic spintronic devices in this interesting IEEE talk: