Spintronics: Fundamentals and applications

Spintronics, or spin electronics, involves the study of active control and manipulation of spin degrees of freedom in solid-state systems. This article reviews the current status of this subject, including both recent advances and well-established results. The primary focus is on the basic physical principles underlying the generation of carrier spin polarization, spin dynamics, and spin-polarized transport in semiconductors and metals. Spin transport differs from charge transport in that spin is a nonconserved quantity in solids due to spin-orbit and hyperfine coupling. The authors discuss in detail spin decoherence mechanisms in metals and semiconductors. Various theories of spin injection and spin-polarized transport are applied to hybrid structures relevant to spin-based devices and fundamental studies of materials properties. Experimental work is reviewed with the emphasis on projected applications, in which external electric and magnetic fields and illumination by light will be used to control spin and charge dynamics to create new functionalities not feasible or ineffective with conventional electronics.Comment: invited review, 36 figures, 900+ references; minor stylistic changes from the published versio

Comprehensive estimation of spatial and temporal migratory connectivity across the annual cycle to direct conservation efforts

Migratory connectivity is the degree to which populations are linked in space and time across the annual cycle. Low connectivity indicates mixing of populations while high connectivity indicates population separation in space or time. High migratory connectivity makes individual populations susceptible to local environmental conditions; therefore, evaluating migratory connectivity continuously across a species range is important for understanding differential population trends and revealing places and times contributing to these differences. The common nighthawk Chordeiles minor is a widespread, declining, long‐distance migratory bird. Variable population trends across the nighthawk breeding range suggest that knowledge of migratory connectivity is needed to direct conservation. We used GPS tags to track 52 individuals from 12 breeding populations. We estimated migratory connectivity as 0.29 (Mantel coefficient: 0 = no connectivity, 1 = full connectivity) between the breeding and wintering grounds. We then estimated migratory connectivity at every latitude (spatial connectivity) or day (temporal connectivity) of migration and smoothed those migratory connectivity estimates to produce continuous migratory connectivity ‘profiles'. Spatial and temporal connectivity were highest during migration through North America (around 0.3–0.6), with values generally around 0 in Central and South America due to mixing of populations along a common migratory route and similar migration timing across populations. We found local peaks in spatial and temporal connectivity during migration associated with crossing the Gulf of Mexico. We used simulations to estimate the probability that our method missed peaks (spatial: 0.12, temporal: 0.18) or detected false peaks (spatial: 0.11, temporal: 0.37) due to data gaps and showed that our approach remains useful even for sparse and/or sporadic location data. Our study presents a generalizable approach to evaluating migratory connectivity across the full annual cycle that can be used to focus migratory bird conservation towards places and times of the annual cycle where populations are more likely to be limited