More on Spintronics

segment writes "'We have discovered the equivalent of a new 'Ohm's Law' for spintronics - the emerging science of manipulating the spin of electrons for useful purposes,' says Shoucheng Zhang, a physics professor at Stanford. 'Unlike the Ohm's Law for electronics, the new 'Ohm's Law' that we've discovered says that the spin of the electron can be transported without any loss of energy, or dissipation. Furthermore, this effect occurs at room temperature in materials already widely used in the semiconductor industry, such as gallium arsenide.'"

Comments

relevant?

[jayratch]

so... they've figured out how to alter the path of electrons outside of a circuit. I can see how that could be useful, but how likely is this to be practical to real electronics?

It can't really be free

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't the free manipulation of information be sorta, I dunno, against the laws of thermodynamics?

I think it's a publicity ploy

[mark-t]

Some science geek group probably wants more funding, so they claim to have discovered a property that defies fundamental truths like the inexorable growth of entropy.

No system can be 100% efficient, not now, not ever. The mere fact that they would make the claim of no-energy loss whatsoever is all that it takes to set off the alert flags that this is nothing but a hoax.