spintronicsSpintronics is an emerging field of nanoscale electronics involving the detection and manipulation of electron spin . This is in contrast to conventional electronics, which deals only with the accumulation and movement of charge carrier s. Spintronics is of interest to engineers and manufacturers of semiconductor devices, particularly integrated circuits ( IC s), which are used in most electronic devices and systems, including computers. Electron spin can be detected as a magnetic field having either of two orientations, known as down and up. This provides an additional two binary states to the conventional low and high logic values, which are represented by simple current s. With the addition of the spin state to the mix, a binary digit (or bit) can have four possible states, which might be called down-low, down-high, up-low, and up-high. These four states are called quaternary digits, or qubit s for short. Spintronic technology has been tested in mass-storage components such as hard drive s. The technology also holds promise for digital electronics in general. The existence of four, rather than two, defined states for a logic bit translates into higher data transfer speed, greater processing power, increased memory density, and increased storage capacity, provided the properties of electron spin can be "tamed" for practical applications.
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Nov 09, 2005 |
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