Final Report Summary - NEWSPIN (New Frontiers in Spintronics)
Spintronics is the field of research concerned with technological applications of the electron spin, which can be roughly understood as a small and therefore quantummechanical internal compass needle of the electron. Conventional spintronics is usually based on magnetic conductors, like ordinary iron, and already has applications, for example in the read head of hard drives. This project pushes spintronics in new directions, by studying more exotic magnetic materials and by studying spin dynamics in systems consisting of cold atoms, atoms that are cooled to temperatures of only a fraction above absolute zero. In the project, it was found that a particular magnetic material called MnSi exhibits current-driven magnetization dynamics at very small electric currents. This result is important because for applications a small critical current is desirable, as a low current implies low power cost and low heating of devices. For cold-atom systems this project found that a certain electrical resistance, called the spin drag resistance, behaves radically different then for ordinary electronic systems. This latter result is especially important for our understanding of the fundamental science of spintronics, and also provides a paradigm for thinking about the spintronics of cold-atom systems. One of the most important results of the project is that is has strengthened the ties between ordinary spintronics and cold-atom systems, which has the longterm goal of using cold-atom systems to understand fundamental aspects of spintronics.