| Aug 29, 2011 |
Scientists put a new spin on traditional information technology
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(Nanowerk News) Sending information by varying the properties of electromagnetic waves has served humanity well for more than a century, but as our electronic chips steadily shrink, the signals they carry can bleed across wires and interfere with each other, presenting a barrier to further size reductions. A possible solution could be to encode ones and zeros, not with voltage, but with electron spin, and researchers have now quantified some of the benefits this fresh approach might yield.
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In a paper in the AIP's journal Applied Physics Letters ("Silicon spin communication"), a team from the University of Rochester and the University of Buffalo has proposed a new communications scheme that would use silicon wires carrying a constant current to drive electrons from a transmitter to a receiver. By changing its magnetization, a contact would inject electron spin (either up or down) into the current at the transmitter end.
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Over at the receiver end, a magnet would separate the current based on the spin, and a logic device would register either a one or a zero. The researchers chose silicon wires because silicon's electrons hold onto their spin for longer than other semiconductors. The team calculated the bandwidth and power consumption of a model spin-communication circuit, and found it would transmit more information and use less power than circuits using existing techniques.
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The researchers did find that the latency, or the time it takes information to travel from transmitter to receiver, was longer for the spin-communication circuit, but its other benefits mean the new scheme may one day shape the design of many emerging technologies.
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