Superconducting spintronics offer extraordinary potential because they combine the properties of two traditionally incompatible fields to enable ultra-low power digital electronics
- Jason Robinson
A project which aims to establish the UK as an international leader in the development of “superconducting spintronics” – technology that could significantly increase the energy-efficiency of data centres and high-performance computing – has been announced.
Led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, the “Superspin” project aims to develop prototype devices that will pave the way for a new generation of ultra-low power supercomputers, capable of processing vast amounts of data, but at a fraction of the huge energy consumption of comparable facilities at the moment.
As more economic and cultural activity moves online, the data centres which house the servers needed to handle internet traffic are consuming increasing amounts of energy. An estimated three per cent of power generated in Europe is, for example, already used by data centres, which act as repositories for billions of gigabytes of information.
Superconducting spintronics is a new field of scientific investigation that has only emerged in the last few years. Researchers now believe that it could offer a pathway to solving the energy demands posed by high performance computing.
As the name suggests, it combines superconducting materials – which can carry a current without losing energy as heat – with spintronic devices. These are devices which manipulate a feature of electrons known as their “spin”, and are capable of processing large amounts of information very quickly.
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Image: Growing quantities of data storage online are driving up the energy costs of high-performance computing and data centres. Superconducting spintronics offer a potential means of significantly increasing their energy-efficiency to resolve this problem.
Credit: 10515 images via Pixabay
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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