Tag Archives: Newspin3 Conference

Germany goes international with SpinNet, its spintronics project

A Feb. 8, 2013 news item on Nanowerk features an announcement of an international spintronics project, SpinNet, being funded by the federal government of Germany,

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is sponsoring a joint project involving Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Mainz, Tohoku University in Japan, Stanford University, and IBM Research. The project will be focusing on the field of spintronics, a key technology that enables the creation of new energy-efficient IT devices. At Mainz researchers from JGU’s Institute of Physics and the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry participate with many of the activities taking place under the Materials Science in Mainz (MAINZ) Graduate School of Excellence. Over the next four years, the SpinNet network will be funded with about EUR 1 million from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). SpinNet is one of the 21 projects that the German Academic Exchange Service approved from the total of 120 proposals submitted in the first round and from the 40 entries that made it to the second round.

The Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (Mainz University) Feb. 8, 2013 news release, which originated the news item, provides details about the network and about the project itself,

Under the aegis of the MAINZ Graduate School, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz had submitted a proposal for financial support as a so-called “Thematic Network”. With this program, the German Academic Exchange Service aims to provide support to research-based multilateral and international networks with leading partners from abroad. The inclusion of non-university research facilities, such as IBM Research, was encouraged and the program is intended to help create attractive conditions that will help attract excellent international young researchers from partner universities to Germany. Another purpose is to enable the participating German universities to work at the cutting edge of international research by creating centers of competence. The MAINZ Graduate School has been closely cooperating with the partners for years and SpinNet will help to further this cooperation and fund complementary activities.

SpinNet will concentrate on the development of energy-saving information technology using the potential provided by spintronics. The current semiconductor-based systems will reach their limits in the foreseeable future, meaning that innovative technologies need to be developed if components are to be miniaturized further and energy consumption is reduced. In this context, spintronics is a highly promising approach. While conventional electronic systems in IT components employ only the charge of electrons, spintronics also involves the intrinsic angular momentum or spin of electrons for information processing. Using this technology, it should be possible to develop non-volatile storage and logic systems and these would then reduce energy consumption while also radically simplifying systems architecture. The new research network will be officially launched on April 1, 2013; with the inaugural meeting of the partners taking place at the Newspin3 Conference that is to be held on April 2-4, 2013 in Mainz.

You can find more information and videos about this initiative and/or spintronics by clicking the news item link or news release link.  There does not seem to be a SpinNet website. NewsSpin3 conference information can be found here along with details about the NewSpin3 summer school which takes place immediately following the conference. Spintronics was last mentioned here in a Jan. 31, 2013 posting about a 3-D microchip developed from a spintronics chip.