Sending Spins Through Rough Terrain
Science · 2000
Conventional electronics uses charges to switch currents on and off. In magnetoelectronics, or spintronics, the quantum-mechanical properties of the charge carriers (electron spin) are utilized as the pieces of information transferred around the system, but this has been restricted so far to studies of homogeneous systems. One of the major problems for an integrated magnetoelectronics technology is the transfer of the spin-states between different types of materials, that is, across heterojunctions. The different environments for the electrons in each of the layers can cause decoherence of the electron spin and prevent a coherent signal from crossing over.