Today’s information technology relies on electronics that consumes a huge amount of energy, the electrons within electric currents can also transfer a form of angular momentum called spin.
‘Spin-based electronics or ‘spintronics’, that exploits spin current, has the potential to be not just significantly faster, but also more energy-efficient.
Scientists have recently discovered that some electrically insulating antiferromagnetic materials are exceptionally good conductors of pure spin current.
In the new research, scientists from Exeter, in collaboration with the Universities of Oxford, California Berkeley, and the Advanced and Diamond Light Sources, have experimentally demonstrated that high frequency alternating spin currents can be transmitted by, and sometimes amplified within, thin layers of antiferromagnetic NiO.
The results demonstrate that the spin current in thin NiO layers is mediated by evanescent spin waves, a mechanism akin to quantum mechanical tunneling.
The use of thin NiO layers for transfer and amplification of ac spin current at room temperature and gigahertz frequencies may lead to more efficient future wireless communication technology.
Insulating antiferromagnets have recently emerged as efficient and robust conductors of spin current. Element-specific and phase-resolved x-ray ferromagnetic resonance has been used to probe the injection and transmission of ac spin current through thin epitaxial NiO(001) layers. The spin current is found to be mediated by coherent evanescent spin waves of GHz frequency, rather than propagating magnons of THz frequency, paving the way towards coherent control of the phase and amplitude of spin currents within an antiferromagnetic insulator at room temperature.
SOURCES- Physical Review Letters, University of Exeter
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
You wish we had more evenhanded news back?
Back? I’m not sure we have ever had evenhanded news. I have a feeling that we just are now more aware that it is not evenhanded.
Too much focus on IT and space. Need more brains focused on biochem and energy.
OK, news stories were not making that clear. I was not trying to spread misinformation. Some news sources are quite obsessed with making Trump look worse before elections, I suppose.
People are either going to ignore anything and everything he does wrong, or they have already seen enough, and can’t wait to give him the thumbs down. I wish we had more evenhanded news back.
Being in the same timezone and actively speaking the language would be useful to the students, but, I suppose those are not essential. I do think it is regrettable that he does not think giving these people a taste of our culture helping them understand us better would not be useful years down the road. However, this whole time is not our proudest moment. You don’t usually invite over company when you have underwear on the furniture, a sick child, dirty kitty litter kicked all over the floor, leftovers for dinner and an uncle already here who just keeps making crude and raciest remarks, cheating at all the games with the kids and pinching visitors.
In normal times, I’d agree. In normal times, someone here on a student visa who only takes online classes is clearly just using the visa as a loophole in order to work in the US.
But right now with the coronavirus, people who would normally attend in person are taking classes online. And many of those people will have already been here two years with an apartment full of stuff in the course of a normal college journey. For them, heading home for the next semester or two is a significant burden.
I know, every good policy catches a few innocent people on the margins and we can’t let the bleeding hearts stop us from governing. But in this particular year, there’s probably a lot more innocent students who’ll be caught up than loophole abusers. This is not the best year to implement this policy.
He’s not deporting all the international students. Only the ones who don’t have to be here to attend class because classes are online.
Have so much as one lab class or other attendance required class, and you get to keep you student visa. Which, after all, was issued so you could attend class, not just because you’d like to be here.
I wonder how much science is going to be crippled by Trump deporting all the international students. And with that US technological competitiveness in the world.
The US should instead be trying to attract tech talent from Hong Kong before the UK and other countries scoop them all up.
Is this related to gravity spinners?
Oh, that’s just spin. 😉