'Spintronic' Devices Coming from Caltech

An anonymous reader writes "Boffins at Caltech and UC Santa Barbara say a basic discovery in magnetic semiconductors could result in a new generation of "spintronic" devices. The physicists say the new phenomenon, called the giant planar Hall effect, has to do with what happens when the spins of current-carrying electrons are manipulated. Practical applications? New paradigms in information storage, magnetic logic to replace transistors as switches in certain applications and possibly use of the quantum states of the spins themselves for logic gates in future quantum computers. Found in the Science Blog."

Comments

nowhere near practical

[js7a]

under optimal conditions, spin coherence in a semiconductor could last hundreds of nanoseconds at low temperatures

Or, in other words, even if someone figures out how to inject spin currents from a ferromagnetic metal into a semiconductor (real unlikely, IMHO), then they aren't going to be stable without being spin currents from a ferromagnetic metal into a semiconductor.