For many decades now, the technologies of communication and
information processing have been based on ever-smaller devices built
from conductors or doped semiconductors, in which electrons are
moved around. However a new kind of technology is beginning to
emerge, based instead on the dynamics of quantum spins, sometimes
with no moving electrons at all. This use of spins offers several
huge advantages over existing technologies - far less heat is
generated, and more subtle operations can be carried out using spin
than electronic charge. It also offers a much more direct use of
quantum mechanics and the possibility of quantum devices based on
spin.
Some of the ideas currently being explored include 'spintronics'
devices based on the transport of spin (without necessarily moving
charges at all), and the construction of elementary solid-state
logic devices made from very small numbers of spins (at the
molecular or even atomic scale). The quantum properties of such
devices are important, and moreover their behaviour at these length
scales is often very different from that in the bulk - one of the
big surprises has been the possibilities opened up by new kinds of
magnetic quantum materials at the nanoscopic scale.
The main themes of the meeting will include
- Spin transport, and spin momentum transfer
- New materials: Novel Oxides, Graphene, etc.
- Quantum spin devices; qubits, etc.
- The technological perspective
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Organizers
SSP Parkin (IBM)
GA Sawatzky (UBC)
PCE Stamp (UBC)
SC Zhang (Stanford) |
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