Spintronics -- Engadget

spintronics posts

Spintronics magic appears again, aims to vastly accelerate data storage and retrieval

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 7th 2009 at 5:21AM

As the list of "awesome things that won't ever happen" grows ever longer, we've got a brilliant team of French physicists who have seemingly concocted a method for storing and retrieving data on hard discs that's around 100,000 times faster than usual. Yes, 100,000x. The trick is based around spintronics, an almost mythical procedure that involves the use of lasers, magnetic sensors and mutant abilities to shuffle data around at a dizzying rate. This particular method, however, improves upon the comparatively sluggish attempts of the past, as it uses photons that "modify the state of the electrons' magnetization on the storage surface." In layman's terms, this all means that the HDD you buy in 2098 will probably operate significantly faster than the one you picked up during Circuit City's going-out-of-business sale. Got it? Good.

Scientists use single electron pump to take subatomic particles for a spin

by Ross Miller, posted Jan 16th 2009 at 12:06PM

German and Latvian researchers at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have successfully demonstrated how a single electron pump can be used to give the elementary particles a predefined "spin." Aptly titled spintronics, the technology aims to manipulate a quantum-level property of electrons similar to the north-south axes in magnets. The results would be faster chips that require less energy than current electronics, which deal in electron movement. Of course, all of this is still a ways off from consumer use, so don't expect to be overclocking your electron pumps anytime soon. Science-minded readers would be advised to hit up the read link to peruse the research paper.

[Via Nanowerk and Spintronics-Info]

Researchers say "spin Seebeck effect" could lead to new batteries, storage

by Donald Melanson, posted Oct 9th 2008 at 2:58PM

You know something's a long way from becoming an actual product when we're just talking about the discovery of an "effect," but a team of researchers at Keio University in Yokohama, Japan say that the so-called "spin Seebeck effect" they've discovered could eventually have some pretty big implications for all sorts of devices. According to Science News, the researchers found that by heating one side of a magnetized nickel-iron rod they were able to change the arrangement of the electrons in the material according to their "spins," which is the quantum-physics equivalent of the south-north magnetic axes in bar magnets. One of the big advantages of that, it seems, is that, unlike with electric currents, transferring information by "flipping spins" does not generate heat, which would let "spintronics devices" operate at higher speeds without overheating, and cut down on power consumption in the process.

[Via Spintronics-Info, image courtesy Nature]

IBM's racetrack memory dashing towards commercialization

by Darren Murph, posted Apr 11th 2008 at 8:28AM

So, how do you go about impressing the world after busting out a few systems based around the "fastest chip on Earth?" By getting us all worked up for a little thing called racetrack memory, that's how. Far from being the first memory technology that runs laps around the DIMMs we're relying on today, IBM researchers are suggesting that this iteration could enable users to store substantially more data at a lower cost and be available in around a decade. Put simply, the gurus working the project have discovered a way to overcome the prohibitively expensive process of manipulating domain walls in magnetic storage, essentially making a long-standing approach entirely more viable. If you're totally in nerd heaven right now, we assure you, checking out the explanatory video waiting after the jump is a must-do.

[Via BBC]

Continue reading IBM's racetrack memory dashing towards commercialization

Researchers develop semiconductor for manipulating electron spin

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 17th 2007 at 7:02AM

Quantum computing isn't exactly synonymous with mainstream (yet), but a team of engineers at the University at Buffalo are looking to overcome some of the most prominent hurdles "that have prevented progress toward spintronics and spin-based quantum computing." Apparently, these gurus have conjured up a semiconductor that "provides a novel way to trap, detect and manipulate electron spin," the latter of which is the most notable. Essentially, the UB group's scheme could open up "new paradigms of nanoelectronics," and it manages to stand out from prior efforts by requiring fewer logic gates and promising to operate in much warmer (20-degrees Kelvin versus 1-degree Kelvin) conditions. Now that they've figured out how to dictate single spin, the subsequent step would be to "trap and detect two or more spins that can communicate with each other" -- you know, a vital precondition for quantum computing.

[Thanks, Jordan]

Researchers use magnetic fields to manipulate light

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 14th 2007 at 8:35AM

We've seen magnetics used in everything from closet improvements to insomnia treatments, but researchers at the University of Alberta and the United States Naval Research Laboratory have found that "by manipulating electron spin using magnetic fields, they can turn off and on light that's being guided through metals." By looking deeper into the fields of plasmonics and spintronics, the gurus have discovered that this on-off light switch could be used for tasks such as routing infrared light in optical communications or processing radio signals in cell phones. Additionally, this system could potentially decrease power requirements for the devices it invades, and while a finalized product isn't quite ready, the team is already anxious to "build devices that can act as switches in a chip."