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Indian born scientist Dr. Jagadeesh S. Moodera and his multinational team of researchers were in limelight having developed a novel magnetic semiconductor that may greatly increase the computing power and flexibility of future electronic devices, while dramatically reducing their power consumption.
The magnetic semiconductor material, which is seen as a major step forward in the field of spin-based electronics - or "spintronics", where the spin state of electrons is exploited to carry, manipulate and store information.
Some e-gadgets like laptops, mobile phones and iPods already employ spintronics to store information in their super-high-capacity magnetic hard drives and using electron spin states to process information through circuits would be a dramatic advance in computing.
 Dr. Moodera, a senior scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Magnet Lab explains what spintronics is all about in an e-mail interview to AC Ganesh of CIOL.
Tell us about the new technology and its benefits?
The field of spintronics aims to use spin as well as the charge to store and communicate information. In that sense, more information can be stored, processed and works faster also. One of the biggest advantages is its ability to retain the data – nonvolatile, saving energy.
For example, what one paid for a 100Mb hard drive 10-15 years ago will fetch now a days perhaps 400Gb hard drive. That is nearly 40,000 times cheaper!! Can you imagine anything that has become so cheap in 15 years? You see, there is the advantage to the end user. Incidentally, hard drives now-a-days already use spintronics devices in some form.
We hope to create spin based semiconductor devices for information processing, such as SpinFET (spin field effect transistor) reprogrammable logic, multifunctional devices, in the distant future even towards the development of quantum computers etc.
I am excited about this field and we are in its infancy – similar to what was semiconductor electronics was in the sixties may be. There is plenty of growth opportunity for both basic science and technological benefits. A tree is not created overnight - it takes lots of tender care and nurturing to reach the goal. One has to be patient!
How will organizations in the field of ICT benefit out of it?
Just like more powerful hard drives, flash memories and DRAMS have helped the IT industry, with the availability of denser, faster and nonvolatile devices, things are expected to improve dramatically.
Tell us about the team?
The team consists of post doctoral associates, graduate students and visiting scientists. Periodically high school students and undergraduate students take part in research as well. It is a totally multinational team, currently with people from seven different countries. Then there are our collaborators from other universities and institutions.
Are Indians in the forefront of Spintronics?
There certainly are people of Indian origin in the field. For example, Prof. K. V Rao at Stockholm (Sweden) and his team, Prof. S. B. Ogale and his team in University of Maryland (USA), Dr. T. Banerjee in Twente University (The Netherlands), Prof. R. N. Bhat in Princeton U (USA), Prof. A. Punnoose at Boise State U (USA), Dr. M. Venkatesan in Trinity College (Ireland) and of course our group here in MIT. There may be many others. All these people are engaged in the Spintronics research.
Where do you think Spintronics is heading from here?
We are at the initial stages, as mentioned above, although not at the very beginning. We have learnt a lot and there is lot more to be sorted out. Certainly more research is needed. One of the near term approaches would be to hybridize this with the conventional semiconductors.
What is your opinion of Dr Moodera's invention? Do you think it will go a long way in reducing power consumption in semiconductors?
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