Communications of the ACM
A New Class of Materials Could Realize Quantum Computers
A newly identified class of materials could be ideal for use in spintronics, according to researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
Credit: levoodoo
Researchers at Switzerland's Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) identified a new class of materials whose electronic properties could be ideal for spintronics.
The researchers led a study on the electronic and spin structure of a new material made of germanium and tellurium (GeTe) and doped with manganese (Mn). This material belongs to a small class of multiferroic materials in which ferromagnetic and ferroelectric properties are directly coupled. The combination of spin-orbit interaction and magnetism produces some exotic properties that have been long sought by researchers from around the world.
As part of their study, the EPFL researchers used thin films of the GeTe material, each about 200 nm thick. They used a technique called photoemission, which uses the photoelectric effect predicted by Einstein.
The study revealed the intertwined nature of the electric and magnetic properties of the new class of materials, known as multiferroic Rashba semiconductors. "So when we switch one the other is affected too, which paves the way to future spintronic devices, since we can switch the magnetic orientation using just a small electrical field," says EPFL researcher Hugo Dil.
From Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
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