A defect controls transport in graphene

The field of spintronics, which uses the spin of an electron besides its charge as a carrier of information in electronics, has seen much theoretical and experimental progress over the last decades [1]. The spin degree of freedom interacts less with its environment than does the charge degree of freedom. Hence spin-based electronics may have some advantages—less dissipation of power, for example—over charge-based ones. Since spin is the intrinsic angular momentum of an electron, found in each and every electronic system, the efficacy of a specific material for spintronics depends on how well it can control and store spin.