Spintronics

Spintronics encompasses the ever-evolving field of magnetic electronics.[1] It offers the possibility to communicate via pure spin currents as opposed to electric charge currents. The talk provides a brief perspective of recent developments to switch magnetic moments by spin-polarized currents, electric fields and photonic fields. Developments in the field of spintronics depend on the exploration and discovery of novel nanostructured materials and configurations. An array of exotic transport effects dependent on the interplay between spin and charge currents have been explored in recent years. The talk highlights select promising areas and features recent work at Argonne, including, most strikingly, in the realm of medical applications. [2] 

* Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, under contract No. DE-AC02-06CHI 1357. 

1.	S. D. Bader and S. S. P. Parkin, "Spintronics," in Annual Reviews of Condensed Matter Physics 1, 71-88 (2010).
2.	Dong-Hyun Kim, Elena A. Rozhkova, Ilya V. Ulasov, S. D. Bader, Tijana Rajh, Maciej S. Lesniak, and V. Novosad, Nature Materials 9, 165-171 (2010).