Physicists pin down atomic spin for spintronics

BERKELEY – Scientists who dream of shrinking computers to the nanoscale look to atomic spin as one possible building block for both processor and memory, yet setting the spin of an atom, let alone measuring it, has been a challenge.

Now, University of California, Berkeley, physicists have succeeded in measuring the spin of a single atom, moving one step closer to quantum computers and "spintronic" devices built from nanoscale transistors based on atomic spin.

topographic map of a supercold copper surface with cobalt islands interspersed

A topographic map of a 4.8 Kelvin (-451ºF) copper surface with cobalt islands interspersed. The colors represent height above the copper in nanometers – billionths of a meter. Green specks on the islands are iron "adatoms," while iron adatoms on the copper surface appear blue. The map was obtained with a scanning tunneling microscope with a spin-polarized tip, an instrument that at the same time measured the spin of each iron atom. (Michael Crommie/UC Berkeley)