Influential interfaces lead to advances in organic spintronics
Spintronics is an emerging field of electronics in which devices work by manipulating the quantum mechanical spin of electrons, in addition to their elementary electric charge. Just as conventional transistors have a source of electrons, a gate to control their movement, and a drain to carry off the charge signal, a spintronic circuit needs a well-controlled source of spin-polarized electrons that are injected into a transport channel material, a well-defined method of controlling the spin through the material, and a system to detect the spin signal. Additionally, it requires a transport channel material with long spin lifetimes because (polarized) spins fade away (i.e., become randomized) and lose their information during transport, unlike electric charges.