A variable temperature and variable magnetic field (VT-VMF) platform for development of spintronic memory and display

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Spintronics and organic electronics are two emerging frontiers of modern electronics. Spintronics aims to harness the spin state of carriers (instead of their charge) in semiconductors to realize novel device functionalities. These include low power computing, non-volatile memories and ultra-sensitive magnetic field sensors. Organic electronics, on the other hand, offers mechanically flexible, optically active and inexpensive devices, which have found myriad applications in portable "roll up" displays and lighting, electronic papers, smart cards, organic labels and tags, smart textiles, solar cells and batteries. The goal of the proposed research program is to integrate spintronics and organic electronics to realize devices which combine the advantages of these two areas.Here we propose two distinct  "organic spintronic" devices. The first one is a nanowire based organic magnetic random access memory (nanowire OMRAM) which will be inexpensive, ultrathin, ultralight, flexible and possess high data storage density. This device can be integrated seamlessly with innumerable organic electronics applications (as mentioned above) to realize smart functionalities. The second device is a nanowire spintronic OLED (organic light emitting diode), which will be much brighter and energy efficient compared to conventional OLEDs. This will have immense impact on the battery powered organic LED applications such as cell-phone displays and PDA screens.Facilities required for fabricating and characterizing organic electronic devices are available at the Nanofab in the University of Alberta. Here we request a Variable temperature and Variable Magnetic field (VT-VMF) platform to characterize spintronic devices. This will complement and strengthen the existing nanotechnology research facility (Nanofab) at the University of Alberta.