SPINTRONICS

Spintronics (slide) is a new branch of electronics in which electron spin, in addition to charge, is manipulated to yield a desired electronic outcome. All spintronic devices act according to the simple scheme: (1) information is stored (written) into spins as a particular spin orientation (up or down), (2) the spins, being attached to mobile electrons, carry the information along a wire, and (3) the information is read at a terminal. Spin orientation of conduction electrons survives for a relatively long time (nanoseconds, compared to tens of femtoseconds during which electron momentum and energy decay), which makes spintronic devices particularly attractive for memory storage and magnetic sensors applications, and, potentially for quantum computing where electron spin would represent a bit (called qubit) of information.

My own research in spintronics focuses on spin relaxation in electronic materials and on spin devices.