Non-magnetic semiconductors could be used to create spintronic devices with ultralow power consumptions, predicted by Chinese scientists. Spintronics is an emerging technology that processes information encoded in the spin on electrons. Recent years have also seen the development of topological insulators — materials that conduct a current across their surface with little loss. To merge these two concepts, Zhongqin Yang from Fudan University and her teammates simulated the properties of films of the semiconductor copper sulfide on the surface of manganese selenide. They showed that this creates a topological Chern insulator in which the low-loss surface states are fully spin polarized. Most existing spintronic materials are magnetic, but the team's simulation indicates that ordinary semiconductors could also be useful, opening more possibilities of materials that can realize completely spin polarized, high-speed spintronic devices.
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