Goodbye Traditional Semiconductors?
Goodbye Traditional Semiconductors?
Researchers at The Ohio State University are "ditching primitive silicon circuits," and pioneering the use of organic spintronics devices. Prof. Arthur J. Epstein and his team claim to have created "the worlds first functioning spintronics device... which promises to use "less space, processes data faster, and consumes less power than its silicon brethren."
Essentially a plastic replacement for traditional semiconductor based memory, it harnesses magnetism not electricity to store information, saving a lot of energy in the process. Because traditional memory uses electrical charge to assign the value of digital information, with one charge signifying a 0 and the opposite charge a 1, every bit of information processed requires the discharge of a small amount of electricity, and its wasteful byproduct, Heat. Magnetism, unlike charge, is a much more efficient way to store digital information, as changing the spin of an electron requires far less work than transferring charge.
Prof. Epsetin says, "Spintronics is often just seen as a way to get more information out of an electron, but really it's about moving to the next generation of electronics. We could solve many of the problems facing computers today by using spintronics."
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