Scaling-driven nanoelectronics

New materials

• Ge and III-V CMOS
• Spintronics
• Carbon nanotechnology

Today's CMOS devices only use the charge currents of moving electrons, not their spin. Imec aims to explore devices that can sense, store, and carry electron spin currents.

Invent - The work at imec is focused on moving spintronic technology towards manufacturable devices and evaluating their functionality, power consumption, and operating speed for various applications.

Achieve - Imec has modeled the operating conditions of electrical spin injection and detection in Si that allow 2-terminal operation at realistic bias conditions. This was done with an in-house developed spin drift diffusion simulation tool. Experiments focus on the process compatibility with standard CMOS technology and the influence of the ferromagnetic metal deposition on the SiO₂ barrier.