Magnetised graphene could lead to spintronic devices

The findings, from the Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience (IMDEA-Nanociencia) and Autonoma Autonomous (UAM) and Complutense (UCM) universities of Madrid, have been published in Nature Physics.

‘In spite of the huge efforts to date of scientists all over the world, it has not been possible to add the magnetic properties required to develop graphene-based spintronics. However these results pave the way to this possibility,’ said Prof Rodolfo Miranda, director of IMDEA-Nanociencia.

Spintronics is based on the charge of the electron and its spin, which determines its magnetic moment. As the spin can have two values, its use adds two more states to traditional electronics; both data processing speed and quantity of data to be stored on electronic devices can be increased, with applications in fields including telecommunications, computing, energy and biomedicine.

In order to develop a graphene-based spintronic device, the challenge was to ‘magnetise’ the material, and researchers from Madrid claim to have found the way through the quantum and nanoscience world.