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Prof. N. Venkataramani1, Abeen Bhattacharya2
1 Professor,Department of Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science, IIT Bombay
2 Student, Department of Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science, IIT Bombay
Spintronics and its Real-World Applications
Abstract — Spintronics, or spin electronics, is an emerging
field of basic and applied research in physics and
engineering that aims to exploit the role played by electron
spin in solid-state materials. Spintronic devices make use
of spin properties instead of or in addition to electron
charge to carry information thereby offering opportunities
for novel micro-electronic and nano-electronic devices.
This paper reviews the background and current status of
this subject, and also some of the applications of
Spintronics
I. INTRODUCTION
The word spintronics—short for spin electronics—was
coined in the 1990s to describe devices that take advantage of
“spin,” a quantum-mechanical property of an electron that
takes only two values: spin-up and spin-down. Spintronics
research flowered following the discovery of the giant
magnetoresistance (GMR) effect in the late 1980s.
The fundamental underlying spintronics phenomena that
made the spin-valve a reality was discovered while
researching novel properties of superlattices formed from
combinations of various magnetic and non-magnetic materials
based on flowing charge currents through these superlattices.
By working at the atomic scale, it was discovered that by
sandwiching a non-magnetic layer of material between two
magnetic layers, where each of the layers was just a few atoms
thick, and by applying small magnetic fields, the current
flowing through the sandwich could significantly be changed.
The reason was that within the magnetic layers, the electrical
current, which was composed of negatively charged electrons,
became “spin-polarised”: all the electrons’ spins became
oriented either “up” or “down,” depending on the magnetic
orientation of these layers—just like nanoscopic compass
needles, which point to either the North or the South Pole.
Small magnetic fields reorient these compass needles. This
effectively created the ability to turn the “spin-polarised”
current on or off—just like a valve.
The spin valve also created the ability to detect more minute
magnetic impulses when flown over a magnetic hard drive.
This ability allowed for vastly more data to be written to and
stored on a hard drive than was possible before the discovery
of GMR.




II. SPINTRONICS
A. Introduction
Spintronics (a portmanteau meaning spin transport
electronics), also known as spin electronics, is the study of the
intrinsic spin of the electron and its associated magnetic
moment, in addition to its fundamental electronic charge, in
solid-state devices. The field of spintronics concerns spin-
charge coupling in metallic systems; the analogous effects in
insulators fall into the field of multi-ferroics.
Spintronics fundamentally differs from traditional
electronics in that, in addition to charge state, electron spins
are exploited as a further degree of freedom, with implications
in the efficiency of data storage and transfer. Spintronic
systems are most often realised in dilute magnetic
semiconductors (DMS) and Heusler alloys and are of
particular interest in the field of quantum computing and
neuromorphic computing.
B. History
Spintronics emerged from discoveries in the 1980s
concerning spin-dependent electron transport phenomena in
solid-state devices. This includes the observation of spin-
polarised electron injection from a ferromagnetic metal to a
normal metal by Johnson and Silsbee (1985) and the discovery
of giant magnetoresistance independently by Albert Fert et al.
and Peter Grünberg et al. (1988). The origin of spintronics can
be traced to the ferromagnet/superconductor tunnelling
experiments pioneered by Meservey and Tedrow and initial
experiments on magnetic tunnel junctions by Julliere in the
1970s. The use of semiconductors for spintronics began with
the theoretical proposal of a spin field-effect-transistor by
Datta and Das in 1990 and of the electric dipole spin
resonance by Rashba in 1960.
C. Theory
The spin of the electron is an intrinsic angular momentum that
is separate from the angular momentum due to its orbital
motion. The magnitude of the projection of the electron's spin
1
along an arbitrary axis is ℏ, implying that the electron acts as
2
a fermion by the spin-statistics theorem. Like orbital angular
momentum, the spin has an associated magnetic moment, the
magnitude of which is expressed as

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3 q
μ= ℏ spin up state into an outgoing spin down state. Spin de-
2 me
In a solid, the spins of many electrons can act together to
affect the magnetic and electronic properties of a material, for
example endowing it with a permanent magnetic moment as in
a ferromagnet.
In many materials, electron spins are equally present in both
the up and the down state, and no transport properties are
dependent on spin. A spintronic device requires generation or
manipulation of a spin-polarised population of electrons,
resulting in an excess of spin up or spin down electrons. The
polarisation of any spin dependent property X can be written
as
X↑ − X↓
PX =
X↑ + X↓
A net spin polarisation can be achieved either through creating
an equilibrium energy split between spin up and spin down.
Methods include putting a material in a large magnetic field
(Zeeman effect), the exchange energy present in a ferromagnet
or forcing the system out of equilibrium. The period of time
that such a non-equilibrium population can be maintained is
known as the spin lifetime, τ.
In a diffusive conductor, a spin diffusion length λ can be
defined as the distance over which a non-equilibrium spin
population can propagate. Spin lifetimes of conduction
electrons in metals are relatively short (typically less than 1
nanosecond). An important research area is devoted to
extending this lifetime to technologically relevant timescales.
A plot showing a spin up, spin down, and the resulting spin
polarised population of electrons. Inside a spin injector, the
polarisation is constant, while outside the injector, the
populations go to equilibrium.
The mechanisms of decay for a spin polarised population can
be broadly classified as spin-flip scattering and spin de-
phasing. Spin-flip scattering is a process inside a solid that
2
does not conserve spin, and can therefore switch an incoming
phasing is the process wherein a population of electrons with a
common spin state becomes less polarised over time due to
different rates of electron spin precession. In confined
structures, spin de-phasing can be suppressed, leading to spin
lifetimes of milliseconds in semiconductor quantum dots at
low temperatures.
Superconductors can enhance central effects in spintronics
such as magnetoresistance effects, spin lifetimes and
dissipation less spin-currents
D. Metal-based Spintronics
The simplest method of generating a spin-polarised current in
a metal is to pass the current through a ferromagnetic material.
The most common applications of this effect involve giant
magnetoresistance (GMR) devices. A typical GMR device
consists of at least two layers of ferromagnetic materials
separated by a spacer layer. When the two magnetisation
vectors of the ferromagnetic layers are aligned, the electrical
resistance will be lower (so a higher current flows at constant
voltage) than if the ferromagnetic layers are anti-aligned. This
constitutes a magnetic field sensor.
Two variants of GMR have been applied in devices: (1)
current-in-plane (CIP), where the electric current flows
parallel to the layers and (2) current-perpendicular-to-plane
(CPP), where the electric current flows in a direction
perpendicular to the layers.
Other metal-based spintronics devices:
• Tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR), where CPP transport is
achieved by using quantum-mechanical tunnelling of
electrons through a thin insulator separating ferromagnetic
layers.
• Spin-transfer torque, where a current of spin-polarised
electrons is used to control the magnetisation direction of
ferromagnetic electrodes in the device.
• Spin-wave logic devices carry information in the phase.
Interference and spin-wave scattering can perform logic
operations.
E. Semi-Conductor Based Spintronics
Doped semiconductor materials display dilute
ferromagnetism. In recent years, dilute magnetic oxides
(DMOs) including ZnO based DMOs and TiO2-based DMOs
have been the subject of numerous experimental and
computational investigations. Non-oxide ferromagnetic
semiconductor sources (like manganese-doped gallium
arsenide GaMnAs), increase the interface resistance with a
tunnel barrier, or using hot-electron injection.

Spin detection in semiconductors has been addressed with
multiple techniques:
• Faraday/Kerr rotation of transmitted/reflected photons
• Circular polarisation analysis of electroluminescence

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• Nonlocal spin valve (adapted from Johnson and Silsbee's
work with metals)
• Ballistic spin filtering
Because external magnetic fields (and stray fields from
magnetic contacts) can cause large Hall effects and
magnetoresistance in semiconductors (which mimic spin-
valve effects), the only conclusive evidence of spin transport
in semiconductors is demonstration of spin precession and de-
phasing in a magnetic field non-collinear to the injected spin
orientation, called the Hanle effect
III. MATERIAL SELECTION FOR SPINTRONICS
There are two major criteria for selecting the most
promising materials for semiconductor spintronics. First, the
ferromagnetism should be retained to practical temperatures
(i.e. >300 K). Second, it would be a major advantage if there
were already an existing technology base for the material in
other applications. Most of the work in the past has focused on
(Ga, Mn)As and (In, Mn)As. There are indeed major markets
for their host materials in infra-red light-emitting diodes and
lasers and high speed digital electronics (GaAs) and magnetic
sensors (InAs). In samples carefully grown single phase by
molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), the highest Curie
temperatures reported are 110 K for (Ga, Mn)As and 35 K for
(In, Mn)As. For ternary alloys such as (In0.5Ga0.5)0.93Mn
0.07As, the Curie temperature is also as low as 110 K.
A tremendous amount of research on these materials
systems has led to some surprising results, such as the very
long spin lifetimes and coherence times in GaAs and the
ability to achieve spin transfer through a hetero-interface,
either of semiconductor–semiconductor or metal-
semiconductor. One of the most effective methods for
investigating spin-polarised transport is by monitoring the
polarised electroluminescence output from a quantum well
light-emitting diode into which the spin current is injected.
Quantum selection rules relating the initial carrier spin
polarisation and the subsequent polarised optical output can
provide a quantitative measure of the injection efficiency.
There are a number of essential requirements for achieving
practical spintronic devices in addition to the efficient
electrical injection of spin-polarised carriers. These include the
ability to transport the carriers with high transmission
efficiency within the host semiconductor or conducting oxide,
the ability to detect or collect the spin-polarised carriers and to
be able to control the transport through external means such as
biasing of a gate contact on a transistor structure. The
observation of spin current induced switching in magnetic
hetero-structures is an important step in realising practical
devices. Similarly, spin orbit interaction in a semiconductor
quantum well could be controlled by applying a gate voltage.
Combined with the expected low power capability of
spintronic devices, this should lead to extremely high packing
densities for memory elements.
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IV. APPLICATIONS
A. Spin Transistor
The basic idea of spin transistor, as proposed by Suprio Datt
and Biswajit Das, is to control the spin the spin orientation by
applying a gate voltage, as shown in fig.3. A spin –FET, as
depicted below, consists of ferromagnetic electrodes and
semiconductor channels that contain a layer of electrons and a
gate electrode attached to the semiconductor. The source and
drain electrodes are ferromagnetic (FM) metals. The spin-
polarised electrons are injected from the FM source electrode
(FMs), and after entering the semiconductor channels they
begin to rotate. The rotation can be controlled by an applied
electric field through the gate electrode. If the spin orientation
of the electron channels is aligned to FM drain (FMd)
electrode, electrons are able to flow into the FM drain
electrode. However, if the spin orientation is flipped in the
electron layer electrons cannot enter the drain electrode. In
this way, with the gate electrode the orientation of the electron
spin can be controlled.
B. Spin (Magnetic) BJT
In a magnetic transistor, magnetised ferromagnetic layers
replace the role of n and p type semiconductors. Much like in
a spin-valve, substantial current can flow through parallel
magnetised ferromagnetic layers. However if say, in a three
layer structure, the middle layer is antiparallel to the two side
layers; the current flow would be quite restricted, resulting in a
high overall resistance. If two outside layers are pinned and
the middle layer allowed to be switched by an external
magnetic field, a magnetic transistor could be made, with on
and off configurations depending on the orientation of the
middle magnetised layer. Magnetic (spin) transistors are good
candidates for logic (spin logic).
C. Spin Valve with Giant Magneto Resistance
Spintronic device that currently has wide commercial
application is the spin valve. Most modern hard disk drives
employ spin- valves to read each magnetic bit connected on
the spinning platters inside A spin-valve is essentially a spin
“switch” that can be turned on and off by external magnetic
fields. Basically it is composed of two ferromagnetic layers
separated by a very thin non-ferromagnetic layer. When these
two layers are parallel, electrons can pass through both easily,
and when they are anti-parallel, few electrons will penetrate
both layers. The principles governing spin-valve operation are
purely quantum mechanical.
D. Spin LEDs
Recently, efficient spin injection has been successfully
demonstrated in all semiconductor tunnel diode structures by
using a spin- polarised DMS as the injector in one case, and
using a paramagnetic semiconductor under high magnetic field
as a spin filter in the other. In such a case, spin-polarised holes
and unpolarised electronics are injected from either side and
recombine in a quantum well. The polarisation of the injected
holes can be left-circularly polarises light in the

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electroluminescence spectra. Among such devices the simplest
seems to be the concept of a light emitting diode (LED) with
one of the contact layers made ferromagnetic by incorporation
of transition metal impurities, a so called spin LED.
E. Magnetic Random Access Memory [MRAM]
You hit the power button on your television and it instantly
comes to life. But do the same thing with your computer and
you have to wait a few minutes while it goes through its boot
up sequence. Why can't we have a computer that turns on as
instantly as a television or radio? IBM, in cooperation with
Everspin, has launched a Solid State Drive adopting a new
architecture with magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) write
caches instead of capacitor-backed DRAM, that will
potentially eliminate the boot-up process. Magnetic random
access memory (MRAM) has the potential to store more data,
access that data faster and use less power than current memory
technologies. The key to MRAM is that, as its name suggests,
it uses magnetism rather than electrical power to store data.
This is a major leap from dynamic RAM (DRAM), the most
common type of memory in use today, which requires a
continuous supply of electricity and is terribly inefficient.
Twenty-five years ago, DRAM overtook ferrite core memory
in the race to rule the PC memory market. Now it looks like
ferromagnetic technology could be making a comeback, with
IBM Corp. and Infineon Technologies charging a joint team of
80 engineers and scientists with the task of making magnetic
RAM (MRAM).
All modern hard disks are equipped with two different
heads, one for writing and the other for reading. The principle
of the writing head is quite simple, i.e., generation of a
magnetic field as electricity passes through the head. The head
focuses this magnetic field generated to the area on the disk
surface where the bit is to be written. Conceptually the
technique for reading is the reverse of that of writing, i.e.,
using electromagnetic induction and it was the technique used
in earlier hard disks. But as the storage density increased, it
became very difficult to read a bit from the disk surface as
there was the interference of magnetic fields from the
neighbouring bits.
A small electrical current is kept flowing through the
reading head. When a bit passes 21 under the head, due to the
presence of the magnetic field associated with the bit, the
electrical resistance of head changes which alters the current
flowing through it. This change in the current flow is so
significant that it can be easily detected.
Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) is a
non-volatile computer memory (NVRAM) technology, which
has been under development since the 1990s. Continued
increases in density of existing memory technologies --
notably Flash RAM and DRAM -- kept MRAM in a niche role
in the market, but its proponents believe that the advantages
are so overwhelming that MRAM will eventually become
dominant. Unlike conventional RAM chip technologies, in
MRAM data is not stored as electric charge or current flows,
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but by magnetic storage elements.
The elements are formed from two ferromagnetic plates,
each of which can hold a magnetic field, separated by a thin
insulating layer. One of the two plates is a permanent magnet
set to a particular polarity; the other's field will change to
match that of an external field. A memory device is built from
a grid of such "cells". Reading is accomplished by measuring
the electrical resistance of the cell. A particular cell is
(typically) selected by powering an associated transistor which
switches current from a supply line through the cell to ground.
Due to the magnetic tunnel effect, the electrical resistance of
the cell changes due to the orientation of the fields in the two
plates. By measuring the resulting current, the resistance
inside any particular cell can be determined, and from this the
polarity of the writable plate. Typically if the two plates have
the same polarity this is considered to mean "0", while if the
two plates are of opposite polarity the resistance will be higher
and this means "1". On comparison with existing memory
technologies, MRAM is faster than SRAM, have a higher
storage density than DRAM, the power requirement is less
than that of DRAM and it is faster than FLASH. MRAM is the
Memory of the future. If the researches turn up, it will replace
both Volatile and Non Volatile Primary memories.
MRAM (Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) uses
electron spin to store data. Memory cells are integrated on an
integrated circuit chip, and the function of the resulting device
is like a semiconductor static RAM (SRAM) chip, with
potentially higher density and the added feature that the data
are nonvolatile, that is data are retained with power off.
Typical “classic” or “conventional” MRAM uses spin-
dependent tunnel junction memory cells and magnetic row and
column write lines as illustrated.
The spin-dependent tunnel junction produces a large change
in resistance depending on the predominant electron spin in a
storage layer. The tunnel barrier is as thin as a few atomic
layers--so thin that electrons can “tunnel” through the
normally insulating material, causing a resistance change.
Row and column magnetic write lines allow data to be written
to a selected cell in a two-dimensional array:
Data are written by small electrical currents in the write
lines that create a magnetic fields, which flip electron spins in
the spin-dependent tunnel junction storage layer, thus
changing the junction’s resistance. Data is read by the
tunnelling current or resistance through the tunnel junction.
Next generation MRAM could reduce cell size and power
consumption. Potential next-generation designs include
SpinMomentum Transfer, Magneto-Thermal MRAM, and
Vertical Transport MRAM. Spin-Momentum Transfer (also
“Spin-Transfer,” “Spin Injection,” or “Spin Torque Transfer”)
MRAM is based on changing the spin of storage electrons
directly with an electrical current rather than an induced
magnetic field. This method has the potential to significantly
reduce MRAM write currents, especially with lithographic
feature sizes less than 100 nanometers. M-T MRAM uses a
combination of magnetic fields and ultra-fast heating from
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