ABSTRACT
Spintronics aims to utilize the spin degree freedom of electrons for novel information storage and computing devices [1–4]. The potential advantages of spintronic devices include non-volatility, increased data processing speed, increased integration densities, and decreased electric power consumption [1]. Originating from discovery of giant magnetoresistance in metallic ferromagnetic (FM) multilayer systems [5, 6], spintronics is divided into two major research directions: spin-based quantum computing [7, 8] which uses isolated electron or nuclear spins as quantum bits, and spin transport devices which focus on the injection, transport and manipulation of spin‑polarized carriers for information storage and spin logic devices [2, 4, 9–12].
