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Spintronics is the broad term given to the class of electronics based on electron spin. In layman’s terms, electron spin is the characteristic of an electron to spin about an axis, much like a top or a basketball. The way that electron spin can be used in computing is because spin can be of two types, clockwise or counter-clockwise. Once controlled, these two types of spin can naturally be used in the design and manufacture of computers that use binary data.

There are several advantages that Spintronics will potentially have over existing devices and therefore there is considerable push towards producing these devices.

-more reliable and less dependent on an electric current

-overwhelming advantage in size

-Smaller size usually means lower power consumption, and less cost.

Magnetic RAM (or MRAM) has been introduced and has proved to be a viable RAM technology and is gradually gaining prominence. A 1.2 petabyte (1200 Terabyte) disk drive based on Spintronics has been successfully produced. These devices have firmly established the field of Spintronics and ensured that there is enough interest in studying these devices for future applications.

Apart from these commercial applications there are a number of applications of Spintronics and devices based on Spintronics that are being actively studied. Collosal Magnetoresistance, Tunnel Magnetoresistance (TMR), and Spin Torque Transfer are some of the technologies being studied and tested. MRAM uses arrays of TMR or Spin Torque Transfer devices. A new memory technology based on Spintronics called Racetrack will soon be available commercially.

A quantum mechanics based computer has been developed at the University of Michigan, and researchers have shown successful implementations of how to inject electrons with spin into Silicon chips. Success has also been achieved in magnetizing a semi-conductor by precisely placing metal atoms within it. All of this is gradually advancing the field as well as laying the foundations of a Spintronics based computer or hybrid computer within the next decade.

After the initial experiments with GME or Giant Magnetoresistive Effect which proved the feasibility of the technology and thereafter the success of the GMR sandwich structure as a read head and as a memory storage cell, the field of Spintronics has become well established. The success of MRAM is yet another step in the forward direction. The future is to have a class of computers that are based almost entirely on electron spin. Towards this goal, there are several directions that researchers are focusing on, these include:

1.    Physics – understanding:
a.    Creation of spin polarization through optical or magnetic injection.
b.    How to achieve Spin transport through semi-conductor and super-conductor interfaces and spin coherence length in semi-conductors.
c.    Spin relaxation in metals and semiconductors.
2.    Spin based computing:  Spin based devices such as transistors and amplifiers
3.    Fabrication:
a.    Synthesizing suitable Spintronics materials at room temperature.
b.    Fabricating devices with nanometer feature sizes.
4.    Integration: Integrating spin based devices with current microelectronics.

Conclusion

Mass production will eventually reduce costs to make it a better option. As research progresses and the standing questions are gradually answered, this should become the technology of the future because Spintronics devices would prove to be smaller, consume less power and will therefore prove to be cheaper in the long run.