What is it about?
Spintronics has many applications, but rarely in photodetectors. This is one of those rare exceptions where spin transport features are harnessed to create a photodetector out of a nanowire spin valve. The spin valve is a device with three layers - a ferromagnet, a semiconductor and another ferromagnet. Shining light on this device causes spin relaxation and that changes the device's resistance, allowing one to detect the presence of light.
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Why is it important?
This is a very unusual mechanism of photodetection which does not require generating electrical charges via illumination. Hence, in principle, it should be able to detect low light intenstities and sport a large photo-responsivity.
Perspectives
Regardless of whether this will be a commercially viable product, it expands our understanding of spin transport phenomena in restricted dimensionality devices.
Professor Supriyo Bandyopadhyay
Virginia Commonwealth University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Modulating spin relaxation in nanowires with infrared light at room temperature, Nanotechnology, June 2015, Institute of Physics Publishing,
DOI: 10.1088/0957-4484/26/28/281001.
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