A new theory by Rice University scientists could boost the field of spintronics. Materials theorist Boris Yakobson and graduate student Sunny Gupta at Rice's Brown School of Engineering describe the mechanism behind Rashba splitting, an effect seen in crystal compounds that can influence their electrons' up or down spin states, analogous to on or off in common transistors.
The left shows the crystal structure of a MoTe2
The Rice model characterizes single layers to predict heteropairs two-dimensional bilayers that enable large Rashba splitting. These would make it possible to control the spin of enough electrons to make room-temperature spin transistors, a far more advanced version of common transistors that rely on electric current.
The working principle behind information processing is based on the flow of electrons that can be either off or on, Gupta said. But electrons also have a spin degree of freedom that can be used to process information and is the basis behind spintronics. The ability to control electron spin by optimizing the Rashba effect can bring new functionality to electronic devices.
A cellphone with spin-related memory would be much more powerful and much less energy-consuming than it is now, he said.