Everything digital is currently stored in data centres on magnetic hard disk drives which are accessed at will using a magnetic read head. The spinning disks and moving read heads in the hard disks imply slow access time and high-power consumption making data centres giant sponges for electricity. At the same time, semiconductor based storage suffers from thermal dissipation with miniaturization on top of data leakage and high cost. The ideal memory for data storage would be cost-effective, non-volatile, fast and consume less power, combining desirable features of both magnetic and semiconductor storage technology. To this end, the field of “spintronics" promises a new direction towards efficient data storage using magnetic memories. This thesis presented a number of studies on electron spin transport in transition metals using a state-of-the-art density functional theory based scattering approach. Because of their complex Fermi surfaces and partially filled d bands with strong spin-orbit coupling, transition metals are rich in spin phenomena that have potential for spintronics applications.

Download Thesis