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Electronics in a spin

Nature volume 411, pages 747–748 (2001)Cite this article

Electrons can be shuttled around according to their 'spin', as well as their charge. Do this efficiently in a semiconductor and the future of electronics starts to look very different.

Essentially all semiconductor technology is based on electronic devices, such as transistors, that operate by internally shuttling small packets of electronic charge. In the past decade, however, devices have been developed that exploit the electron's 'spin' rather than its charge1. As a consequence of quantum mechanics, all electrons have spin, which gives them a magnetic moment — much as if they were tiny bar magnets. Many advances have been made in this new field of spin electronics, known also as spintronics, but scientists have not yet reached the same exquisite control over the flow of spin in microscale devices as they have over the flow of charge in conventional electronic devices.

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Figure 1: Electron spin transfer across an interface between two different semiconductors (gallium arsenide, GaAs, and zinc selenide, ZnSe) in a magnetic field.

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  1. Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology 114-36, Pasadena, 91125, California, USA

    Michael L. Roukes

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  1. Michael L. Roukes
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Correspondence to Michael L. Roukes.

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Roukes, M. Electronics in a spin. Nature 411, 747–748 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35081213

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