4
1 An Overview of Spintronics
• Another advantageous convenience of spintronics is that the usage of unique
and specialized semiconductor is not required. Rather, incorporation of common
metals like Cu, Al, Ag is enough to yield the desired functionality.
• Like ferromagnetic materials, antiferromagnets also bear a good number of properties that make them suitable for spintronic applications. Antiferromagnetic states
are intrinsically non-volatile and additionally robust to external magnetic field.
Most importantly, antiferromagnets are abundant in nature. Many ferromagnets,
like iron and cobalt, become antiferromagnetic when oxidized, and they are good
insulators also.
• Spin orientation of conduction electrons survives for relatively long time, on the
order of nanoseconds. This makes spintronics devices promising for potential
application in memory, storage and magnetic sensors.
• In order to operate, spintronics involves less power compared to that of conventional electronics. This is because the energy required to alter spin orientation is
a minute fraction of the energy needed to make the electronics charge flow all
around in the circuit.
• Spin is supposed to be more steady and ‘reliable’ than that of charge, when
subject to the external perturbations like temperature, pressure or radiation. Hence,
spintronics-based devices are expected to be better functioning in high temperature or radiation environments than that of electronics devices. Conceptually, spintronic devices should be more miniature, faster and more robust than electronic
ones.
1.2.3 Advantages of Spintronics
To summarize, the advantages of spintronics are:
• Consumption of low power.
• Smaller degree dissipation of heat.
• Non-volatile electronic memory.
• Compactness is more, i.e., lesser occupation of space on chip.
• Greater read and write speed because of superior and fast manipulation and
controlling of electron spin.
• Spintronics uses very common metals like Cu, Al, Ag, instead of engineered
semiconductor structure.
1.3 Research Efforts Put on Spintronics
Nowadays, we are conversant with the idea that ‘electron spin’ explicitly participates
industry and has become an emergent technology for various applications such as
storing, encoding, accessing, processing and transmitting of information in some
1 An Overview of Spintronics
• Another advantageous convenience of spintronics is that the usage of unique
and specialized semiconductor is not required. Rather, incorporation of common
metals like Cu, Al, Ag is enough to yield the desired functionality.
• Like ferromagnetic materials, antiferromagnets also bear a good number of properties that make them suitable for spintronic applications. Antiferromagnetic states
are intrinsically non-volatile and additionally robust to external magnetic field.
Most importantly, antiferromagnets are abundant in nature. Many ferromagnets,
like iron and cobalt, become antiferromagnetic when oxidized, and they are good
insulators also.
• Spin orientation of conduction electrons survives for relatively long time, on the
order of nanoseconds. This makes spintronics devices promising for potential
application in memory, storage and magnetic sensors.
• In order to operate, spintronics involves less power compared to that of conventional electronics. This is because the energy required to alter spin orientation is
a minute fraction of the energy needed to make the electronics charge flow all
around in the circuit.
• Spin is supposed to be more steady and ‘reliable’ than that of charge, when
subject to the external perturbations like temperature, pressure or radiation. Hence,
spintronics-based devices are expected to be better functioning in high temperature or radiation environments than that of electronics devices. Conceptually, spintronic devices should be more miniature, faster and more robust than electronic
ones.
1.2.3 Advantages of Spintronics
To summarize, the advantages of spintronics are:
• Consumption of low power.
• Smaller degree dissipation of heat.
• Non-volatile electronic memory.
• Compactness is more, i.e., lesser occupation of space on chip.
• Greater read and write speed because of superior and fast manipulation and
controlling of electron spin.
• Spintronics uses very common metals like Cu, Al, Ag, instead of engineered
semiconductor structure.
1.3 Research Efforts Put on Spintronics
Nowadays, we are conversant with the idea that ‘electron spin’ explicitly participates
industry and has become an emergent technology for various applications such as
storing, encoding, accessing, processing and transmitting of information in some