ITAMOSCINOM - Injection, transport and manipulation of spin currents in new organic materials

Spintronics is an area of electronics that aims to exploit the spin of the electron. Although it is one of the selected areas to play a role in the post-CMOS electronics, spintronics still must prove its full potential in many subjects. One subject that is particularly important is the long-distance spin transport and spin manipulation. For spintronic devices to be successful, i) they should transport spin for distances in excess of 100 nm and ii) they must have a lateral structure for multiterminal integration. Spin transport with these conditions have been achieved in metals and conventional semiconductors, although there is a need for materials with better spin-transport properties and spin manipulation has still to be developed in any material.

OSC, which are being integrated in mainstream electronics such as LEDs and FETs, may play an important role in the developing of organic spintronics. OSC have a very small spin-orbit coupling, which make them ideal as spin transporters. Combining conventional spintronics with OSC will allow us to open a new perspective in this field. The combination of magnetic and organic materials will allow us to understand the spin transport in carbon-based materials, to determine the potential of OSC in spintronics and to manipulate spins in non-conventional environments.

The project starts by growing and characterizing the organic materials we will study on top of ferromagnetic materials and tunnel barriers and vice versa. This allows us to obtain optimized organic vertical spin valves and study their transport properties. In parallel, we fabricate spin valves with lateral geometry using metals, pure carbon, and finally OSC. The last part of the project is dedicated to the spin manipulation, an essential condition to get advanced spintronic devices, such as a spin transistor.