Heat Drives Electron Orbital Currents in First Experimental Evidence of Orbital Nernst Effect

At a glance

Researchers at National Taiwan University observed, for the first time in an experiment, electrons' orbital angular momentum building up sideways when heat is applied, a effect called the orbital Nernst effect. The study was published in Nature Communications.

Key points

• The team used an oxidized copper film as the source of orbital current.
• A thin platinum layer converted the orbital signal into a spin signal.
• The effect's size was measured from voltage differences tied to the magnetization direction of YIG.

Why it matters

It experimentally confirms a new electronic signal principle that could be useful for memory devices that store information.

More from this field

• NVIDIA Speeds Up Black Hole Telescope Data Processing With GPUs

  NVIDIA's cuPhoton.xBeam is a tool that uses GPUs to process radio telescope data used to image black holes. It handled 10 TB of data in 70 seconds, about 460 times faster than a CPU-based method that took 31,992 seconds.

  NVIDIA Technical blog · Nov 14, 06:17 KST
• Taiwanese Media Say Alice Huang Is Linked to Chinese Spy Agency; U.S. Has Not Reached Conclusion

  Taiwan's Liberty Times reported that Alice Huang, linked to former NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, belongs to a semiconductor unit of China's Ministry of State Security. U.S. officials, however, said they have not yet reached a conclusion.

  경향신문 · Nov 13, 23:22 KST
• Google Maps to Offer Car and Walking Directions in South Korea

  Google has completed the security steps required by the Korean government to move detailed map data overseas. As a result, car and walking directions in Google Maps in Korea are expected to become available.

  매일경제 마켓 · Nov 13, 17:46 KST
• Chip Industry Week in Review: Memory and Quantum Advances, Visa Fee Concerns

  This week's chip news included new memory devices built from ultrathin materials and a room-temperature method for reshaping metal crystals. Several quantum chip announcements also came out. Meanwhile, the industry group SIA warned that a proposed US immigration fee could hurt semiconductor hiring.

  Semiconductor Engineering · Nov 13, 17:01 KST