IBM Research joins a European university team to synchronize electron spins, which could enable a new class of magnetic-based semiconductor transistors resulting in more energy efficient electronic devices.
IBM and scientists at ETH Zurich, a leading European university, have introduced the first-ever direct mapping of the formation of a persistent spin helix in a semiconductor, Big Blue said.
The goal of the project is to use electron spins for storing, transporting and processing information. However, up to this breakthrough, it was unclear whether or not electron spins possessed the capability to preserve the encoded information long enough before rotating.
Yet, as illustrated in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Physics, scientists from IBM Research and the Solid State Physics Laboratory at ETH Zurich demonstrated that synchronizing electrons extends the spin lifetime of the electron by 30 times to 1.1 nanoseconds — the same time it takes for an existing 1 GHz processor to cycle.
Today’s computing technology encodes and processes data by the electrical charge of electrons, IBM explained in a press release. However, this technique is limited as the semiconductor dimensions continue to shrink to the point where the flow of electrons can no longer be controlled. Spin electronics or spintronics could surmount this approaching impasse by harnessing the spin of electrons instead of their charge, IBM said.
This new understanding in spintronics not only gives scientists unprecedented control over the magnetic movements inside devices but also opens new possibilities for creating more energy efficient electronics. Read More
