The field of spintronics - exploiting not only the charge of an electron but also its spin - represents a fast emerging technology in todays' physics.
The aim of the STELE-Project is to study non-equilibrium transport phenomena in ferromagnetic nanostructures with respect to energy and temperature. In particular, an external bias voltage can serve as a parameter to electrically control a spin-polarized current being injected from a ferromagnet (F) into a magnetic conductor, which can be either a paramagnet or a ferromagnet. Under certain circumstances this allows a generation of a highly non-equilibrium spin population and so called "hot electrons," creating an inversion of the distribution of spin-up and spin-down electrons. A relaxation back to the state of equilibrium requires a spin-flip and if any relaxation processes due to a change in momentum (e.g. magnons) are inhibited, this can be achieved by an emission of a photon.
