Has been demonstrated by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Pennsylvania State University. They have shown that a persistent coherent spin current can flow across an interface between two n-doped semiconductor materials, at a temperature of 5 K. The discovery is a positive step in the quest for spintronic semiconductor devices that manipulate electron spins rather than charges. (See the article by David D. Awschalom and James M. Kikkawa in Physics Today June 1999, page 33.) Putting an external electric field across the interface between a gallium arsenide spin reservoir and a zinc selenide layer increased the efficiency of spin transfer by a factor of 5 over that with no electrical bias. The characteristics of the spin signal in the ZnSe layer were surprisingly representative of the spin properties of the GaAs layer. When the same team replaced the n-doped GaAs reservoir with p-doped GaAs, they...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
1 August 2001
August 01 2001
Citation
Barabara Goss Levi; A “spin battery”. Physics Today 1 August 2001; 54 (8): 9. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4796473
Download citation file:
PERSONAL SUBSCRIPTION
Purchase an annual subscription for $25. A subscription grants you access to all of Physics Today's current and backfile content.
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
169
Views
Citing articles via
The lessons learned from ephemeral nuclei
Witold Nazarewicz; Lee G. Sobotka
FYI science policy briefs
Lindsay McKenzie; Jacob Taylor