Silicon spintronics

Recent advances in successful operation of silicon-based devices where transport is dependent on electron magnetic moment, or ldquospinrdquo, could provide a path to a future alternative for logic processing. The basics of this spin-based electronics technology are discussed and the specific methods necessary for application to silicon are described. Mirroring the Haynes-Shockley experiment, which was used sixty years ago to measure minority-carrier transport parameters in semiconductors, here we have used a four-terminal device to make fundamental measurements of spin transport parameters.