Spintronics - Principles and applications of spin electronics

The development of thin-film deposition and lithography techniques has made it possible to create electronic devices that take advantage not only of the electron's charge, but also of its spin, to obtain new and additional functionalities. The combination of magnetic materials and metallic, semiconducting or insulating materials in nano-scale structures has given rise to a new generation of components and a new discipline: spin electronics, or spintronics. Spin transport is dependent on the magnetization direction of magnetic nanoelements, generating magnetoresistance effects, i.e. conductivity dependence on magnetization direction and/or applied magnetic field. These effects make it possible to produce highly sensitive sensors, in particular magnetic field sensors. In addition, it is possible to develop data storage or manipulation devices, in particular by exploiting the magnetization state as a variable, and spin transfer effects to reverse the magnetization. Finally, the use of spin-orbit effects enables efficient spin manipulation, possibly in the absence of any ferromagnetic element.

In this article, we present the thin films and nanostructures used in spin electronics (§ 1 ), in which various effects appear: magnetoresistances (§ 2 ), spin transfer (§ 3 ) or spin-orbit effects (§ ...