It is a hard life being an electronics business, they just keep changing the science under you. This time around we have a combination of electronics and spin – and that has nothing to do with PR.
We have been meaning to find a reason to come back to the subject of spintronics, the latest hot topic among academic researchers in electronics. There doesn't seem to have been much to report since we provided our quick guide nearly a year ago.
However, an opportunity to remind you that this is a topic to watch comes in the shape of a passing reference in a newsletter from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which took us to a page on their web site.
There we read:
"Spintronics is an emergent technology that exploits the quantum propensity of the electrons to spin as well as making use of their charge state. The spin itself is manifested as a detectable weak magnetic energy state characterised as "spin up" or "spin down".
This is as good and concise an explanation as we've seen. it takes for granted, of course, that you know what they mean by spin, but it takes only a short course in quantum mechanics to clear up that one.
When it comes to applications, the idea is to use the spin of the electrons rather than their charge to do something useful. And such is the interest in this technology that money is flowing almost as fast as the electrons. "EPSRC's expenditure on spintronic research." the website tells us, "has more than doubled since 2003 as we identified the area as a strategic priority and interest from the research community has grown." The council announced almost £4M in new grants in 2005/2006.
You can get an idea of where this is all leading from an updated version of the EPSRC's brochure on spintronics (a PDF file).There we read that "Although spintronics is still very much at its development phase, this new branch of microelectronics will be worth billions of US dollars a year when products eventually come on to the market."
The interest is partly in the relentless pursuit of ever smaller chips. "Spintronics devices are smaller than 100 nanometre in size, more versatile and more robust than those making up silicon chips and circuit elements."
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