Almadena Chtchelkanova – författare

This text is the culmination of a summer school on spintronics, held in August 1998, in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, that brought together experts on all aspects of magnetism and spin transport phenomenon. These experts lectured for one week on this emerging and important field of study. What was a fledgling field in 1998 has become one of the fastest growing areas of science in less than five years, having impact in many areas of information technology. This book is a collection of some of the lectures that were presented, updated to provide the most up-to-date information on the topics that are covered in the various chapters.

Stuart Wolf This book originated as a series of lectures that were given as part of a Summer School on Spintronics in the end of August, 1998 at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. It has taken some time to get these lectures in a form suitable for this book and so the process has been an iterative one to provide current information on the topics that are covered. There are some topics that have developed in the intervening years and we have tried to at least alert the readers to them in the Introduction where a rather complete set of references is provided to the current state of the art. The field of magnetism, once thought to be dead or dying, has seen a remarkable rebirth in the last decade and promises to get even more important as we enter the new millennium. This rebirth is due to some very new insight into how the spin degree of freedom of both electrons and nucleons can play a role in a new type of electronics that utilizes the spin in addition to or in place of the charge. For this new field to mature and prosper, it is important that students and postdoctoral fellows have access to the appropriate literature that can give them a sound basis in the funda­ mentals of this new field and I hope that this book is a very good start in this direction.