SPP 1285: Semiconductor Spintronics

未来20年半导体器件的功能原理将发生巨大变化，随着结构尺寸的逐步缩小，量子效应将越来越占主导地位。半导体行业预见到这场即将到来的革命，它直接遵循摩尔定律。然而，到目前为止，还没有人知道未来半导体量子器件的功能原理。传统的半导体器件利用对电荷的精确控制。但是电荷可能不是量子器件的最佳实体，因为电子波函数的空间部分的相干长度非常短。除了带电荷外，电子还具有自旋。自旋波函数比空间波函数稳定几个数量级，因此更适合于量子器件。此外，切换自旋方向的能量比库仑充电能量小得多，这可以减少当今半导体器件的加热问题。

The functional principle of semiconductor devices will change dramatically in the next 20 years, since quantum effects will become more and more predominant with the progressive decrease of structure size. Semiconductor industry foresees this upcoming revolution, which follows directly from Moore's law. However, until now nobody knows the functional principle of future semiconductor quantum devices. Traditional semiconductor devices utilise the precise control of the electrical charge. But the electrical charge might not be the best entity for quantum devices, since the coherence length of the spatial part of the electron wave function is very short. Besides the charge the electron also possesses a spin. The spin wave function is by orders of magnitude more stable than the spatial wave function and thereby better suited for quantum devices. Additionally, the energy for switching the spin orientation is much smaller than the Coulomb charging energy, which can reduce the heating problem of today semiconductor devices.