These informal lecture notes describe the progress in semiconductor spintronics in a historic perspective as well as in a comparison to achievements of spintronics of ferromagnetic metals. After outlining motivations behind spintronic research, selected results of investigations on three groups of materials are presented. These include non-magnetic semiconductors, hybrid structures involving se...

In semiconductor spintronics, electron spin rather than charge is the key property. This paper describes several spin-related devices using spin-orbit interaction. We have experimentally confirmed that the spin-orbit interaction in a semiconductor two-dimensional electron gas channel can be controlled by a gate voltage. This is the first step towards the creation of functional spin devices. The...

The research group of Professor Hideo Ohno of the Center for Spintronics Integrated Systems, the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, and the WPI Advanced Institute for Materials Research, together with ULVAC, successfully fabricated magnetic tunnel junctions with a diameter reduced to 11 nm. They demonstrated that high thermal stability and low power consumption can be simultaneousl...

My main research interests lie in theoretical computer science with a primary focus on randomness in computation. I prefer to study basic algorithmic problems, which are in the same time well-motivated by applications in practice. Among others I have been focusing on applications in physics. The examples include finding matchings in graphs, randomized approximation schemes for counting perfect ...

Manipulating spin polarization of electrons in nonmagnetic semiconductors by means of electric fields or optical fields is an essential theme of the conceptual nonmagnetic semiconductor-based spintronics. Here we experimentally demonstrate an electric method of detecting spin polarization in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) generated by circularly polarized optical pumping. The...