New electron spin secrets revealed: Discovery of a novel link between magnetism and electricity

Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the University of Cambridge in the UK have demonstrated that it is possible to directly generate an electric current in a magnetic material by rotating its magnetization.

The findings reveal a novel link between magnetism and electricity, and may have applications in electronics.

The electric current generation demonstrated by the researchers is called charge pumping. Charge pumping provides a source of very high frequency alternating electric currents, and its magnitude and external magnetic field dependency can be used to detect magnetic information.

The findings may, therefore, offer new and exciting ways of transferring and manipulating data in electronic devices based on spintronics, a technology that uses electron spin as the foundation for information storage and manipulation.

The research findings are published as an Advance Online Publication (AOP) on Nature Nanotechnology's website on 10 November 2014.