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Solid-state physics

Bouncing spins

Nature volume 458, pages 841–843 (2009)Cite this article

The conventional approach to flipping electron spins in a semiconductor requires an external alternating field. It seems that the same job can be accomplished without external excitation of any kind.

A mother pushing her son on a swing knows that she must push the swing in synchrony with the swinging motion. Similarly, to flip the spin of an electron in a static magnetic field, we must apply an alternating magnetic field whose frequency matches the wobbling motion of the electron's spin orientation about the static field. Or so we thought. In their report on page 868 of this issue, Frolov et al.1 show that electron spins can be flipped with electric fields, which is unusual in itself, and that the fields are purely static. This sounds as if the mother were pushing the swing in the same direction all the time, but the swing nevertheless rocks back and forth.

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Figure 1: Flipping electron spins.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lieven M. K. Vandersypen is at the Kavli Institute of NanoScience, TU Delft, Lorentzweg 1 CJ Delft 2628, the Netherlands. l.m.k.vandersypen@tudelft.nl ,

    Lieven M. K. Vandersypen

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  1. Lieven M. K. Vandersypen
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Vandersypen, L. Bouncing spins. Nature 458, 841–843 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/458841a

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/458841a

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