Scientists have turned a longstanding challenge in electronics—material defects—into a quantum-enhanced solution, paving the way for new-generation ultra-low-power spintronic devices. Spintronics, short for “spin electronics,” is a field of technology that aims to go beyond the limits of conventional electronics.

Traditional devices rely only on the electric charge of electrons to store and process information. Spintronics takes advantage of two additional quantum properties: spin angular momentum, which can be imagined as a built-in “up” or “down” orientation of the electron, and orbital angular momentum, which describes how electrons move around atomic nuclei.

By using these extra degrees of freedom, spintronic devices can store more data in smaller spaces, operate faster, consume less energy, and retain information even when the power is switched off.