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News Release from: DTI Global Watch Service
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 5 August 2005

Event to kick-start
UK spintronics efforts

A major DTI Global Watch Service spintronics event planned for early 2006 will bring together science and industry to get the electron rolling

The potential market for electronic devices based on emerging spintronic technology will be worth billions of US dollars a year when products eventually come on stream. European research organisations and technology companies must co-ordinate their efforts to generate strong research and commercially viable products if they are to compete successfully with the USA and Japan.

A major DTI Global Watch Service spintronics event planned for early 2006 will bring together science and industry to get the electron rolling.

'Groundbreaking' is a term that is often used to describe an exciting new technology, but in the case of spin-based electronics - or spintronics - it couldn't be more fitting.

While conventional electronic devices rely on the transport of electrical charge-carrying electrons in a semiconductor such as silicon, spintronics uses a property called spin - the way individual electrons spin upwards or downwards - as a way of carrying signals.

Although still very much at the development phase, this new branch of electronics is at the cutting edge of microelectronics and heralds a new generation of devices that will be smaller, faster and more versatile than those using present day semiconductors.

Spintronics has been made possible by significant advances in physicists' understanding of quantum physics and surface nanotechnology and will revolutionise electronic devices over the next five to 20 years.

'It represents a fundamental leap in microelectronics', says Ted Ridgway Watt, DTI International Technology Promoter for information technology, electronics and communications technologies for Europe.

'By 2015 spintronics technology will be the only way to make electronic devices smaller and more efficient - by then existing semiconductors and semiconductor materials like silicon will have exhausted their capability for miniaturisation'.

The concept of spintronics has been around since 1988, when French and German physicists discovered an effect known as giant magnetoresistance (GMR), 200 times stronger than ordinary magnetoresistance, which results from electronic spin effects in ultrathin multilayers of magnetic materials causing huge changes in their electrical resistance when a magnetic field is applied.

In 1997 IBM, realising that GMR would allow the storage capacity of a storage disk to leap from 1 to 20Gbit, launched GMR read heads for a new generation of high density disk storage.

The global market for IBM GMR read heads is now worth about GBP 500 million a year.

'The real potential, though, lies in the laboratories of the US, Japan and Europe', says Ted Ridgway Watt, 'where researchers are, for example, working on realising the spin transistor, a challenging undertaking making use of state-of-the-art nanotechnology and necessitating the development of new materials and manufacturing techniques'.

'Once they have achieved a spin transistor the applications will be ubiquitous'.

'Spin transistors will use lower power than classic semiconductor devices and will be much smaller'.

'Sensors are expected to be an early beneficiary, but the advances will migrate to consumer devices, too'.

Ted Ridgway Watt visited universities and research centres in several European countries, including Belgium, Germany and France, to gain an accurate picture of where European research currently stands with regard to spintronics.

His observations have convinced him that the time is right for a major DTI Global Watch Service event to bring together scientists from across Europe and provide a platform for industry to lay down the challenges to the scientific community.

'It is important for European scientists and technology companies to co-ordinate their efforts if they are to reap the benefits of this exciting and still emerging technology', he says.

'The USA and Japan have already invested significantly in this field and have a head start in some areas'.

'Co-ordination of effort across Europe will enhance our capability to generate strong research and commercially successful products'.

'The forthcoming DTI Global Watch Service spintronics event will serve as a timely and much-needed catalyst'.

'It will provide a forum for representatives from science and industry to debate the commercial potential for products, the challenging manufacturing issues involved and the need for new semiconducting materials'.

The planned DTI Global Watch Service spintronics technology event is provisionally scheduled for next spring.

The date and programme details, which will include an industry forum, science workshops and partnering opportunities, will be announced in Global Watch magazine in the autumn.

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