In quantum mechanics, spin is an intrinsic form of angular momentum carried by elementary particles. Spintronics is “A branch of physics concerned with the storage and transfer of information by means of electron spins in addition to electron charge as in conventional electronics.” Spin-based electronics focuses on devices whose functionality is based primarily on the spin degree of freedom of the carriers. This is in contrast to conventional electronics, which exploits only the charge of the carriers. Using either the spin in tandem with the charge or alone, spintronics has some advantages over conventional semiconductor electronics, including higher integration density, non-volatility, decreased power dissipation and faster processing speeds.
Over the last few decades, spintronic sensors working as solid-state magnetic sensors have gained continuous attention and research effort because of their traits such as superb sensitivity, low power consumption, compactness, wide bandwidth, room-temperature operation and CMOS compatibility.
Spintronic sensors can provide measurement data of magnetic field from which magnetic-field-related parameters of some real-world objects can be derived. Spintronic sensors, working as sensing devices, possess superb measuring abilities, and they are of small size and low cost. They can be used as pervasive magnetic field sensors in electrical current sensing, transmission and distribution lines monitoring, vehicle detection and biodetection.
Spintronic sensors with superb measuring ability and multiple unique advantages can be an important piece of cornerstone for IoT. The IoT paradigm envisions to connect billions of “Things” that surround us to the Internet and expects to use the information of these “Things” to enhance utilization effectiveness and efficiency of various public resources, thus accelerating the actualization of smart living. Spintronic sensors, can provide the information of magnetic field and magnetic-field-related parameters (e.g., current, vehicle speed, analyte concentration, etc.) in several applications, which can be a cornerstone for the IoT.
By virtue of the IoT technologies, spintronic sensors are seamlessly integrated into WSNs, which provide the pervasive WSSN monitoring systems for smart living. These WSSN based or related solutions enable the pervasive building energy management system, the wide-area transmission and distribution network monitoring system, the all-round traffic monitoring and management system, and the pervasive health diagnosis system.
The ultrafast detection and spectral analysis of enemy radio transmissions is vital for survivability applications to allow achieving the active interference with these signals on the time scale of the signal propagation time. This problem arises in antiradar defense (to detect incoming radar pulses and jam them or determine the radar position), counterterrorist activity (to detect and jam triggering microwave signals of radiotriggered explosive devices) and military intelligence (to intercept and/or jam radio messages sent using the frequencyhopping spread spectrum method). In all these tasks the detector should be able to determine the frequency of a microwave signal very fast ― on submicrosecond time scale ― to take appropriate counteractions during the time intervals comparable with the time of the pulse propagation.
US Army researchers have developed “Spintronic Radar Detectors for Multifunctional Armor systems,” the fast and very accurate spintronic sensor system for detection and analysis of radar threats for ground combat vehicles.
IDST Monthly Access Membership Required
You must be a IDST Monthly Access member to access this content.