Is it possible to create magnetic semiconductors that function at room temperature?
As electronic devices continue to shrink to just a few nanometers, enabling the integration of billions of devices in computers, power consumption has surged beyond control, exceeding thermal limits and leading to failure. To address this issue, researchers are exploring an alternative to conventional electronics by harnessing the property of “spin” rather than “charge.” This emerging field, known as spintronics, compared to its counterpart electronics, holds the promise of more energy-efficient quantum computing and data storage, and beyond. Recent successes with van der Waals (vdW)–layered diluted magnetic chalcogenide semiconductors (dMCSs) are promising and have sparked a vibrant research community. This field is still in its infancy on the path to realizing the ultimate spintronics. But it is highly likely that the remaining scientific challenges can be overcome within the next decade or so.
