中国科学院自旋电子学和石墨烯研究的进展学术研讨会

 

There has been considerable progress over the past several years in exploring and understanding spin coherence and spin transport in metals and semiconductors. In metals, activity has concentrated on studies of the transport properties of nanoscale magnetic structures and devices. In semiconductors, the phenomena that have been studied include conduction electron spin coherence, nuclear spin coherence, coupling of electron spins to optics, and direct manipulation (electrical, magnetic, or optical) of a nonequilibrium spin state. These two related fields, usually grouped together under the term spintronics, have been a focal point for the condensed matter science community. Interest in spintronics is motivated in part by the technological appeal of the electron spin degree of freedom, which has already and will likely continue to enable new functionalities in electronic devices. The applicability of fundamental results has created a field in which the interests of theoretical, computational, experimental, and device physicists have an unusually large overlap.

 

    The KITPC/CAS program will highlight both fundamental physical phenomena related to spin coherence and advances in spintronic device concepts. The goal is to accelerate progress in the theory of these systems, and also to allow theorists new to this emerging and exciting field to find their bearings. Participants will attempt to uncover new phenomena and to put in place the basic theoretical principles which can be used to build models of spintronic devices. Examples of problems for which theoretical progress is required include collective spin dynamics in the presence of charge and heat currents, spin transport in systems with strong spin-orbit interactions, creation and decay of electron spin coherence, magnetization reversal times and the dissipation associated with magnetization dynamics. An important goal for the program will be the pursuit of new physics that enables transport based logic and data storage circuits with low power consumption. The emerging concepts that give rise to the hope for a breakthrough are related to magnetization currents and associated phenomena such as quantized spin conductance, spin Seebeck effect, and the (quantum) spin Hall effect. The program will be driven in part by the latest experimental advances. Experimentalists that achieved cutting-edge progress will therefore constitute a small but key percentage of the program participants.