An electronic dance of spins and orbits

Because of their potential application in spintronic devices such as next-generation spin-based transistors, the quest for new materials with significant spin-orbit interactions in the electronic ground state is an area of intense research. Since the spin-orbit interaction increases rapidly with atomic number, materials containing heavy elements are natural candidates for this field of inquiry. A novel oxide material containing heavy Iridium atoms displays remarkable properties dominated by spin-orbit interactions in the Iridium 5d valence states according to research carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source at Argonne and reported in Physical Review Letters.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg