Scientists "waltz" closer to using spintronics in computing(spintronics thread)

[ScienceRocks]

Any future news on the topic of spintronics will go in this thread.


Scientists "waltz" closer to using spintronics in computing
August 12, 2012
Scientists "waltz" closer to using spintronics in computing

(Phys.org) -- Aiming to use electron spins for storing, transporting and processing information, researchers from IBM and scientists at ETH Zurich, a leading European university, today revealed the first-ever direct mapping of the formation of a persistent spin helix in a semiconductor.

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Until now, it was unclear whether or not electron spins possessed the capability to preserve the encoded information long enough before rotating. Unveiled in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Physics, scientists from IBM Research and the Solid State Physics Laboratory at ETH Zurich demonstrated that synchronizing electrons extends the spin lifetime of the electron by 30 times to 1.1 nanoseconds -- the same time it takes for an existing 1 GHz processor to cycle.

Today's computing technology encodes and processes data by the electrical charge of electrons. However, this technique is limited as the semiconductor dimensions continue to shrink to the point where the flow of electrons can no longer be controlled. Spintronics could surmount this approaching impasse by harnessing the spin of electrons instead of their charge.

This new understanding in spintronics not only gives scientists unprecedented control over the magnetic movements inside devices but also opens new possibilities for creating more energy efficient electronics.
In this photo, IBM scientists Matthias Walser (left) and Gian Salis who published the finding with C. Reichl and W. Wegscheider from ETH Zurich in the 12 August 2012 online edition of Nature Physics.

The Spintronics Waltz

A previously unknown aspect of physics, the scientists observed how electron spins move tens of micrometers in a semiconductor with their orientations synchronously rotating along the path similar to a couple dancing the waltz, the famous Viennese ballroom dance where couples rotate.

Dr. Gian Salis of the Physics of Nanoscale Systems research group at IBM Research – Zurich explains, "If all couples start with the women facing north, after a while the rotating pairs are oriented in different directions. We can now lock the rotation speed of the dancers to the direction they move. This results in a perfect choreography where all the women in a certain area face the same direction. This control and ability to manipulate and observe the spin is an important step in the development of spin-based transistors that are electrically programmable."