SiSpin meeting at IST Austria

The yearly meeting of the EU FET-OPEN project on “Silicon platform for quantum Spintronics” (SiSpin) was held at IST Austria on the 10th and 11th of September. The SiSpin consortium consists of six research groups from CEA Grenoble, TU Delft, IBM Zürich, Uni Copenhagen, Uni Basel and JKU Linz, bringing together recognized European experts in the growth, nanofabrication, low temperature electronic transport and high frequency manipulation of spins in SiGe based materials. During the two-day meeting, the multidisciplinary team discussed the progresses made in quantum spintronics during the past year, drawing on very recent experimental, theoretical, and technological developments.

Project Coordinator Marc Sanquer, Director of Research at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission CEA in Grenoble, stated: “The SiSpin technological implications range from improving the switching performance of classical logic gates up to the implementation of quantum computing devices based on spin qubits. Now we are optimistically looking into the future for the role of SiGe nanodevices in the field of spin qubits.”

It is widely believed that next-generation electronic devices will exploit the quantum mechanical nature of electrons, as opposed to the classical operating principles of current electronics. This is one of the leading paradigms at the origin of quantum spintronics, a developing field whose goal is to create useful device functionalities out of the spin degree of freedom of electrons. So far, quantum spintronics has remained a matter of basic research. In spite of some remarkable progress, a number of hurdles remain to be overcome so that disruptive solutions and radically new approaches are needed.