Preface
Aim and Purpose
The philosophy, science and technology have given a new dimension to the field of
information processing technology in the last few decades. Very large-scale integration (VLSI) technology has revolutionized the electronics industry and has established the 20th century as the computer age. Computers have enhanced human life
to a great extent and its applications have penetrated into all areas of human society.
The future generation of human civilization needs more energy-efficient devices,
better healthcare, quality of living through integrating information and communication technologies (ICT), smart sensing technology, ubiquitous computing, big
data analytics and intelligent decision-making system. Furthermore, future information processing schemes also have the potential for weather forecasting, earthquake
prediction, artificial intelligence, space flight, antimissile system, telemedicine,
multimedia etc. along with optical communication and networking technology.
Therefore, dramatic technological solutions to these problems are needed, and unless
we gear our thoughts towards a totally different pathway, we will not be able to further
improve our information processing performance for the future.
Electron contains two fundamental degrees of freedom: the charge and the spin.
Over the past years, only the charge of an electron was used in conventional electronic
devices to store and control information. Such circuits are based on non-magnetic
semiconductors, in which the electrons’ spin does not play a role. But charge-based
electronics have almost attained its saturation in the limits of storage density due to
the remarkable increase of power consumption as a result of scaling-related development. An innovative idea that could offer a way out is thus the most wanted. The
scientific world observed a most important breakthrough in the information technologies in 1988, when A. Fert and P. Grünberg discovered independently the giant
magnetoresistance. This discovery rolls the wheel of the spintronics field, which
relies not only on electrons’ charge but also on electrons’ spin, offering perspectives
for a new generation of devices. Spintronic devices, on the other hand, use the spin
degree of freedom to generate and control charge currents as well as to interconvert
electrical and magnetic signals. By combining processing, storage, sensing and logic
v
Aim and Purpose
The philosophy, science and technology have given a new dimension to the field of
information processing technology in the last few decades. Very large-scale integration (VLSI) technology has revolutionized the electronics industry and has established the 20th century as the computer age. Computers have enhanced human life
to a great extent and its applications have penetrated into all areas of human society.
The future generation of human civilization needs more energy-efficient devices,
better healthcare, quality of living through integrating information and communication technologies (ICT), smart sensing technology, ubiquitous computing, big
data analytics and intelligent decision-making system. Furthermore, future information processing schemes also have the potential for weather forecasting, earthquake
prediction, artificial intelligence, space flight, antimissile system, telemedicine,
multimedia etc. along with optical communication and networking technology.
Therefore, dramatic technological solutions to these problems are needed, and unless
we gear our thoughts towards a totally different pathway, we will not be able to further
improve our information processing performance for the future.
Electron contains two fundamental degrees of freedom: the charge and the spin.
Over the past years, only the charge of an electron was used in conventional electronic
devices to store and control information. Such circuits are based on non-magnetic
semiconductors, in which the electrons’ spin does not play a role. But charge-based
electronics have almost attained its saturation in the limits of storage density due to
the remarkable increase of power consumption as a result of scaling-related development. An innovative idea that could offer a way out is thus the most wanted. The
scientific world observed a most important breakthrough in the information technologies in 1988, when A. Fert and P. Grünberg discovered independently the giant
magnetoresistance. This discovery rolls the wheel of the spintronics field, which
relies not only on electrons’ charge but also on electrons’ spin, offering perspectives
for a new generation of devices. Spintronic devices, on the other hand, use the spin
degree of freedom to generate and control charge currents as well as to interconvert
electrical and magnetic signals. By combining processing, storage, sensing and logic
v