Abstracts

Conventional electronics intended to build devices and schemes by manipulating the conducting electrons via charge, nowadays this gradually transforms into what we know as spintronics (SPIN-TRansport electrONICS), i.e., the technology which manipulates one more degree of freedom of the electron - the spin. This concept has evolved as a result of strengthening the technological requirements to the conventional electronic devices - first of all, concerning the reduced energy consumption, especially for the high-frequency operating elements, and also concerning the sensitivity of the devices. In turn, this has increased an interest within the academic community in the effects explicitly involved in the electron charge/spin manipulation, as well as in the materialswhich provide a large magnitude of these effects. The main theoretical description of these effects was given in the early 1970s. It has become clear that the combination of the material characteristics on different scales (e.g. spin-diffusion lengths, relaxation time, etc.) leads to a variety of spin-transport effects, such as giant magnetoresistance (GMR), anomalous Hall effect (AHE), spin Hall effect (SHE), spin accumulation, spintransfer torque (STT), anomalous Nernst effect (ANE), spin Nernst effect (SNE), etc. All these phenomena constitute a base of spintronics. At the same time, the practical ab-initio numerical models and the technical means for their realistic simulation are still developing. A reliable ab-initio description of these effects in realistic models is a necessary step needed in the Material Science in order to predict and understand the particular features of the spin-phenomena in a given material or combined systems.Advisors/Committee Members: Ebert, Hubert (advisor).