New technology will make electronics faster and more efficient

A team of researchers have made a breakthrough discovery in something they like to call "electronics of the future”, or spintronics.

A team of scientists, including physicists from MIPT and the Russian Quantum Centre have demonstrated a method of exciting magnetic vortices using less current. That basically means modern electronics could potentially be much, much faster and consume much less energy thanks to this discovery.

Here is the explanation:

Magnetic vortices are microscopic areas of magnetized material with uniquely arranged magnetization vectors. In the centre of the vortex, the magnetization vector is oriented perpendicularly to the surface, and at the edges these vectors form a structure resembling a vortex or whirlpool. The magnetization vector is in turn linked to spin, a quantum characteristic of individual particles. Controlling magnetic vortices, through spin or otherwise, is what scientists are researching as a foundation for the electronics of the future – spintronics. In order to store and process information in spintronics, the movement of electrons from one position to another or the flow of electronic charges is not important – what is most important is spin and the movement of electrons with a certain spin, a spin current. Information can be transmitted by spin rather than electronic charge, and the charged particles do not necessarily need to move anywhere – they can remain in the same position, but their spins will rotate, transmitting information “along the chain”.

The corresponding theoretical calculations have been published in Physical Review B.