C-SPIN Research Featured in Nature Communications
Nature Communications 7, Article number:
10296,doi:10.1038/ncomms10296
Research by C-SPIN students Changjiang Liu and Tim Peterson, along with former student Sahil Patel and PIs Chris Palmstrøm and Paul Crowell, appeared this month in Nature Communications. The C-SPIN researchers reported on a new means to detect spin currents in devices incorporating Heusler alloys. The new technique, based on ferromagnetic resonance, was effective at detecting spins in the semiconductor GaAs at room temperature. The experiments exploited some of the critical advantages of Heusler alloys, including their high spin polarization and small damping. Heusler alloys are important family of materials and the focus of expanding efforts within C-SPIN, including new PI Ichiro Takeuchi of the University of Maryland.
Briefly, the C-SPIN scientists showed that their approach enables a measurement of short spin lifetimes (<100 ps), a regime that is not accessible in semiconductors using traditional Hanle techniques. This advance opens several doors to developing rapid and reliable spin detection at room temperature, an essential feature of spintronic computing devices.
