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Researchers at MIT's Francis Bitter Magnet Lab have developed a novel magnetic semiconductor that may greatly increase the computing power and flexibility of future electronic devices while dramatically reducing their power consumption.
The work was reported in the April issue of Nature Materials.
The new material is a significant step forward in the field of spin-based electronics -- or "spintronics" -- where the spin state of electrons is exploited to carry, manipulate and store information. Conventional electronic circuits use only the charge state (current on or off) of an electron, but these tiny particles also have a spin direction (up or down).
Devices such as laptops and iPods already employ spintronics to store information in their super-high-capacity magnetic hard drives, but using electron spin states to process information through circuits would be a dramatic advance in computing. "We can carry information in two ways at once, and this will allow us to further reduce the size of electronic circuits," says Jagadeesh Moodera, a senior research scientist at the Magnet Lab and leader of the research team. Today's circuits carry information by varying the on/off state of current passed through electrons. Those same electrons could carry additional information through their spin orientation.
The magnetic semiconductor material created by Moodera's team is indium oxide with a small amount of chromium added. It sits on top of a conventional silicon semiconductor, where it injects electrons of a given spin orientation into the semiconductor. The spin-polarized electrons then travel through the semiconductor and are read by a spin detector at the other end of the circuit.
The work was reported in the April issue of Nature Materials.
The new material is a significant step forward in the field of spin-based electronics -- or "spintronics" -- where the spin state of electrons is exploited to carry, manipulate and store information. Conventional electronic circuits use only the charge state (current on or off) of an electron, but these tiny particles also have a spin direction (up or down).
Devices such as laptops and iPods already employ spintronics to store information in their super-high-capacity magnetic hard drives, but using electron spin states to process information through circuits would be a dramatic advance in computing. "We can carry information in two ways at once, and this will allow us to further reduce the size of electronic circuits," says Jagadeesh Moodera, a senior research scientist at the Magnet Lab and leader of the research team. Today's circuits carry information by varying the on/off state of current passed through electrons. Those same electrons could carry additional information through their spin orientation.
The magnetic semiconductor material created by Moodera's team is indium oxide with a small amount of chromium added. It sits on top of a conventional silicon semiconductor, where it injects electrons of a given spin orientation into the semiconductor. The spin-polarized electrons then travel through the semiconductor and are read by a spin detector at the other end of the circuit.