Spintronics is an emerging technology that facilitates the exploitation of electrons’ intrinsic spin, its fundamental electronic charge, and associated magnetic moment. Instead of merely leveraging the negative charge of the electron to manipulate stored information or electron motion, the technology relies on the degree of freedom of the electron’s spin.
An electron’s spin is directly proportional to its magnetic moment, and its manipulation is closely related to the applied external magnetic field. There are numerous benefits of spin-based electronics, such as their non-volatility compared to the electronics based on the electron charge alone. Additionally, using it, quantum-mechanical computing, which is a key application of this technology, could be achieved at speeds unimaginable with the current methods of computing.
Common Applications of Spintronics
Moreover, it has enabled the packaging of an increasing number of electronic devices into smaller spaces, which has been hindered till now by the limits of the physical space, thus propelling us on the path to true microelectronics. In addition, this new technique, may help in meeting the challenges associated with volatile memory, which is incapable of retaining information after being powered off, thus driving down computing speeds.
Hence, the sale of electronic devices that leverage the spintronics technology will likely generate $12,845.6 million in revenue by 2030. Additionally, the technology was instrumental in creating the read-and-write head of hard drives and floppy drives, which read the information stored on the disk or feed data into it.
Emerging Applications of Spintronics in Computer Storage
Over time, spintronics devices have begun to be widely used in the mass-storage devices to facilitate the compression of extensive amounts of data into a small area. For example, 1.5 Gb/ mm² data can be stored on a disc of diameter 3.5 inches with just one side. Hence, with electronic devices becoming increasingly smaller, especially with the advances in IoT, the limits on data storage enforced by the physical size of the devices can be shattered with spintronics.
In the same way, magnetic field sensors based on the spintronics technology are widely utilized in industrial applications. Magnetoresistance sensors facilitate high sensitivity, which is utilized for biomedical applications. In the same way, their small size, flexibility, and robustness make them ideal for wearable and portable devices.
Moreover, the low power consumption, position sensing, low cost, high accuracy, and stability allow magnetic field sensors to be used for navigation and transportation systems. Similarly, the primary use of the spin valve, which is a kind of giant magnetoresistance sensor, is magnetic storage, which is commonly found in hard disk drives and floppy drives.
With technological advancements making such non-volatile memories obsolete, MRAMs and solid-state drives are becoming the preferred medium for storing data. MRAMs utilize the other type of magnetoresistance, known as tunnel magnetoresistance, which, just like GMR, is based on spintronics.
Emerging Applications of Spintronics in Healthcare
Spintronics is utilized in the health sector for the detection of cancer, even when there are few cells. The cells in the patient’s body get magnetized after being exposed to a strong magnetic field. After this, a beam of electrons with polarized spin is emitted at the unaffected part of the body and at the area where the cancer is suspected. The difference in the electrons’ spin in the normal and abnormal areas reflects the presence or absence of mutated cells.
Therefore, the numerous advantages of spintronics make it massively useful in a host of various industrial applications, the number of which will only increase with time.
