Engineers from the University of Delaware and Cambridge NanoTech of Massachusetts have transmitted the quantum property of electron spin through an entire silicon wafer.
"Our result is significant because it means that silicon can now be used to perform many spin manipulations both within the space of thousands of devices and within the time of thousands of logic operations, paving the way for silicon-based spintronics circuits," said Delaware assistant professor Ian Appelbaum.
The team fabricated a device that injected high-energy, 'hot' electrons from a ferromagnet into the silicon wafer. Another structure made by bonding two silicon wafers together with a thin-film ferromagnet detected the electrons on the other side.
"There's a lot of fundamental work to be done. We're taking the first steps at the beginning of a new road," said Appelbaum. "Before our initial work on spin transport in silicon, we didn't even know where the road was."