Imagine a world where laptop computers are not only smaller and lighter, but also use less power, require no boot-up time, never slow down, never overheat and have enough processing and storage capacity to make today's computers look as pathetic as dial-up next to broadband access.
Igor Zutic, assistant physics professor, could make this idea a reality with his research of spintronics, or the study of an electron's spin. Zutic, recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award, has been granted $400,000 over a period of five years for his work.
"Spin, which is an intrinsic property of various particles such as electrons, can provide new functionalities for devices," Zutic said. "Spin acts like a minute elementary magnet."
According to Zutic, there are two types of spins: up and down. An object's overall spin is only noticeable if it has unequal numbers of up and down spins, resulting in magnetic properties.
"Magnets have interesting properties," Zutic said. "They can remain magnets even if you do not provide any source of power."
The successfully induced magnetic properties of metallic compounds allow a turned-off computer to preserve stored information. Current computers use electron spins to magnetically store data, and use electron charges to process it.
Zutic hopes to introduce spin properties to silicon, which is already used to make semiconductor chips for data processing.
"Silicon is the dominant material for our computers," he said. "It's a very widespread element, and cheap."
By inducing magnetic spin properties in silicon, computers could streamline data processing and data-storage.
"You could have zero boot-up time for the computer," Zutic said. "And on the same chip you could combine both logic, where you are processing information, and memory, where you are storing such information."
These computers could easily be designed to become smaller and lighter, and would be able to perform "more operations in a shorter amount of time," according to Zutic. Lower levels of power required for operation, and consequently a reduced risk of overheating, would also be advantages.
"If you flip spin instead of moving charge, maybe then the power needed to operate the computer could be less," he said. "It could cost less to operate in addition to not having a heating problem."
Zutic said that his research is especially important due to the fact that the rate of advancement in computers has slowed down in the last few years.
Since companies now offer computers with more than one processor to compensate for the lack of improvement in individual processors, Zutic believes his research may bring a focus to individual processors again.
He is also aware of the lucrative possibilities of his research.
"I know from the feedback from people at IBM and Intel," he said, "that they are seriously pursuing spin effects in materials and trying to see if they would lead to a new class of devices."
Zutic predicted that it would be at least ten to fifteen years before his research is applied to computers on the market. He referred to the magnetic method of data storage used in current computer hard drives and high capacity iPods, a method discovered in 1985 but not commercially implemented until ten years later.
"This ten year period was considered extremely fast turnaround from fundamental research to possible application," Zutic said.
In any case, Zutic is more interested in the physical, rather than in the fiscal, aspects of his research.
"My goal is relatively modest," he said, laughing. "I am a theoretical physicist. My goal is to try to better understand materials and their implications around us, which can lead to possible applications."
