Scientist takes a spin at better computer hard drives

William Atkins
Thursday, 09 October 2008 20:44

Science - Energy

And, spintronic devices may someday produce smaller, more efficient, and faster storage data devices and other technological marvels without the excess heat that today is a growing problem as such devices get smaller and smaller.

Spintronics, which means “spin transport electronics,” uses the spin of electrons, along with its magnetic moment, to produce electronic devices, components, and system that are based on the semiconductor.

Electrons have either a spin “up” (up-spin) or a spin “down (spin-down). A spintronic device uses the premise that more of one spin (say up-spin) is present then the other (say down-spin).

This manipulation of spin is accomplished by using various types of magnetic fields.

According to the Science News article “An attractive source for spintronics” (subscription required), the Saitoh team calls their “newly discovered phenomenon the spin Seebeck effect, in analogy with the thermoelectric effect discovered by physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck in the 1800s. In the thermoelectric effect, heating one side of an electrically conducting rod creates a voltage, because electrons at the warmer end become faster as they heat up and thus tend to move toward the cooler end, just like a heated gas tends to expand.”

Such a significant different in the spin of electrons within such magnetic materials could be used to produce magnetic currents in a circuit for practical applications in the storage of data in computer devices.

This article is based on the Science News article “An attractive source for spintronics.”