Center for Emergent Materialsan NSF MRSEC Award Number DMR1420451 P artially supported by DOE DEFG0203ER46054 H ow spinning electrons communicate across interfaces Figure Top two panels show a 2D slice of a gallium arsenide layer with electron position shown in yellow and the dire ID: 572680
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Choreographing a Whirling Dervish
Center for Emergent Materials—an NSF MRSECAward Number DMR-1420451Partially supported by DOE DE-FG02-03ER46054
How spinning electrons communicate across interfaces
Figure: Top two panels show a 2D slice of a gallium arsenide layer with electron position shown in yellow and the direction of their spin shown as red arrows for low (left panel) and high (right panel) temperature. Once the electrons are hot enough, they evaporate out of local traps (bottom panels) and homogeneously distribute throughout the material, evenly spreading the spin.
Y.-S. Ou, Y.-H. Chiu, M. Sheffield, M.
Chilcote, E. Johnston-Halperin (Ohio State), P. Odenthal, R. K. Kawakami (UCR/Ohio State), N. J. Harmon, M. E. Flatté (U Iowa), Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 107201 (2016)
Spintronics
is the study of how to use the fact that electrons spin (similar to the daily rotation of the earth) to design next-generation devices for information technology
A central challenge in this field is to understand how different spins communicate.
F
or example, in a magnetic material like iron more electrons spin clockwise than counterclockwise. In contrast, semiconductors used in computing (like silicon and gallium arsenide) are non-magnetic and have equal numbers of electrons spinning in each direction. Many
spintronic
devices rely on communicating the choreography of the electrons in magnetic materials (iron) to a non-magnetic material (gallium arsenide).
In this study IRG-2 discovered that this choreography is actually controlled by a
third
dance partner, the spin of the protons and neutrons of the gallium and arsenic atoms of the semiconductor. This new understanding will play an important role in the design of future spintronic devices.