Spin Transistors

Abstract

Spintronic devices such as spin transistors are a viable alternative for conventional CMOS-based electronic devices. This is because traditional CMOS devices face the second-order or short channel effects when they are miniaturized to the sub-10 nm regime. Spin transistors have some similarities to conventional MOSFETs. However, the key difference is that a spin transistor has a ferromagnetic source and drain electrode. In contrast, conventional devices have semiconductors and use the spin degree of freedom for the information flow. The spintronic devices also have lower power consumption and better scalability than CMOS devices. The spin transistors are relatively faster and have less transit time which paves the way for deploying them in high-frequency applications. This chapter presents an exhaustive study of spin transistors and their different variants such as spin-FETs, spin-MOSFETs, spin-TFETs, and Dresselhaus field-based spin transistors. The development of spin-FETs vis-a-vis their structural advancement in recent years is also presented in this chapter. Spin-FET-based digital design and reconfigurable design are also discussed. Finally, a comparison based on the number of devices, transit time, and capacitance with conventional CMOS-based design is made to show the pre-eminence of the spin transistors for digital design applications.