章晓中研究组2011年9月在Nature发文报道了在半导体硅中实现了几何增强的室温低场磁电阻，该磁电阻接近商用的巨磁阻的水平，该工作受到了国际和国内学术界的好评，入选2011年度中国科学十大进展和2011年度中国高校十大科技进展。本申请是在我们前期工作的基础上，深入研究电极、非均匀性、p-n结等是如何影响硅的磁电阻，搞清楚硅基磁电阻的机理，做出一个普适的几何增强磁电阻机理。 还要研究微型化的硅基磁电阻器件，使其性能达到或超过商用巨磁阻器件的水平，甚至做出自驱动的硅基磁电阻器件。我们的前期预研表明这个几何增强磁电阻机理还可以推广到其他半导体材料，本申请将研究GaAs、Ge、InSb等半导体材料的磁电阻，争取做出具有新颖磁电功能或磁光电功能的器件。还将研究是否可将几何增强磁电阻的机理用于已有的磁性材料基的磁电阻材料，争取提升已有的磁电阻材料的性能。

Prof. Xiaozhong Zhang's group reported in Nature in September 2011 that they realised a geometrically enhanced low field magnetoresistance in Silicon at room temperature. The magnetoresistance ratio is close to the commercial giant magnetoresistance. This work is highly praised by the international and national research societies of magnetic materials and magnetism. The work has been elected as one of Top 10 progress in China science in 2011 and one of Top 10 science and technology progress of Chinese universities. This proposal is based on our preliminary research and will study in depth the influence of electrodes, inhomogeneities and p-n junctions on the magnetoresistance of silicon in order to understand the mechanism of magnetoresistance of silicon. We shall try to propose a general mechanism for the geometrically enhanced magnetoresistance. We shall study the minimisation of the magnetoresistance devices of silicon, and make the performance of the magnetoresistance device of silicon be equal to or even better than that of the commercial giant magnetoresistance device. We shall try to make a self-driven magnetoresistance device of silicon. Our preliminary results showed that the mechanism for the geometrically enhanced magnetoresistance can be applied to other semiconductors, and we shall study the magnetoresistance of other semiconductors, such as GaAs, Ge and InSb and try to make the novel magnetic-electric devices or magnetic-optic-electric devices. This project will also study whether the mechanism for the geometrically enhanced magnetoresistance is able to be applied to magnetic materials with magnetoresistance in order to further improve the performance of these magnetoresistance materials.