spintronics tagged posts

These images show light patterns generated by a rhenium-based crystal using a laser method called optical second-harmonic rotational anisotropy. At left, the pattern comes from the atomic lattice of the crystal. At right, the crystal has become a 3-D quantum liquid crystal, showing a drastic departure from the pattern due to the atomic lattice alone. Credit: Hsieh Lab/Caltech

Physicists at the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at Caltech have discovered the first 3D quantum liquid crystal – a new state of matter that may have applications in ultrafast quantum computers of the future...

Scientists find twisting 3D Raceway for Electrons in Nanoscale Crystal Slices

Mysterious quantum properties in material point to new applications in electronics. Researchers have created an exotic 3D racetrack for electrons in ultrathin slices of a nanomaterial they fabricated at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) The international team of scientists from Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley, and Germany observed, for the first time, a unique behavior in which electrons rotate around one surface, then through the bulk of the material to its opposite surface and back.

The possibility of developing “topological matter” that can carry electrical current on its surface without loss at room temperature has attracted significant interest in the research communit...

Moderate heating up to 80 °Celsius tilts the magnetic moment associated to a single bit into the plane. Upon cooling to room temperature, the magnetic moment stays in plane, until it is overwritten by a magnetic writing head. Credit: HZB

It paves the way to fast and energy efficient ultrahigh density data storage. Scientists have examined thin films of Dysprosium-Cobalt sputtered onto a nanostructured membrane at BESSY II. New patterns of magnetization could be written in a quick and easy manner after warming the sample to only 80C, which is a much lower temperature as compared to conventional Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording systems.

To increase data density further in storage media, materials systems with stable magnetic domains on the nanoscale are needed...

An ORNL-led research team used neutrons (depicted as spheres) to determine the magnetic structure (seen as blue arrows) of an osmium-based material. X-rays (seen as purple waves) revealed the presence of a strong spin orbit effect (illustrated in red). Credit: ORNL/Jill Hemman

An elusive massless particle could exist in a magnetic crystal structure, revealed by neutron and X-ray research. The team studied a material containing the dense element osmium and documented 2 conditions required for the presence of Weyl fermions -predicted in 1929 and observed experimentally in 2015. Researchers are looking for other materials that could host them to harness their unique properties in spintronics and advanced computing applications such as quantum computers.

“Once you have a material that hosts th...