By Margareth Marmori

The material - made of zinc oxide with a manganese additive - has a very special property when compared to other semiconductors: ferromagnetism at room temperature, which makes it suitable for a large number of consumer market applications, such as optical devices, sensors and X-ray detectors. However, spintronics transistors may be the most promising of these applications.

Spintronic is a relatively new field of research combining two branches of physics: magnetism and electronics. It explores the possibilities given by the fact that electron spin generates magnetic fields. Circuits made with the magnetic semiconductor have the potential to run hundreds of times faster and store thousands of times more information than current electronic designs.

The magnetic semiconductor was announced as a fundamental breakthrough when in 2003 it was made known by researchers led by Professor Venkat Rao and Professor Börje Johansson, from Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology. Right after the announcement, the entrepreneur Jan Nilsson contacted Venkat Rao and they agreed on the creation of a new company for financing of the new material's patent application. Bo Wikström, former president of an Electrolux company, joined them in the foundation of Nilsson Materials, which is based in Lund and Stockholm.

Serial entrepreneur

Nilsson Materials, based in Lund, focuses on research and development of new materials based on spintronics and gets its revenue from licensing the rights of its materials, applications and process technologies. The commercial applications will be exploited by subsidiary companies. One subsidiary, Nilsson Intelligence Systems, has already been started and will develop and market sensors for threat detection systems based on the magnetic semiconductor patented by the parent company. Another newly created subsidiary is Nilsson Memory and a third one, X-Detect, will focus on digital x-ray applications.

"As the material has a myriad of potential applications, our strategy is to create a company for each application, so that is becomes easier to attract investors for each specific application," explains Jan Nilsson.

When it comes to attracting investors to new set-ups, Nilsson knows what he is talking about. He has started up more than 20 high-tech companies, a list that includes the successful SwithCore and Optillion.

Despite his large experience, Nilsson acknowledges that sometimes discussing with would-be investors on the magnetic semiconductor can be somewhat complicated. "It has not been so easy to make the potential applications of the new material well understood by investors," he says. But some giants like Intel have already understood the potential of the material for the production of computer magnetic memory and showed interest in investing in Nilsson Memory.

Industrial production

Jan Nilsson is not worried that the use of the new material in industrial production may encounter technical problems. "The product has been tested technically - the problems to be solved now are more related to the definition of intellectual property. In any case it is still very hard to say when a product made with the magnetic semiconductor will be ready for manufacturing, but it will not take a long time. The memory application can be ready for industrial use already within a year, but the magnetic memory is only a small part of what we have, although it may be enough to make a small revolution in this area," he says.

Researchers from around the world have been investigating spintronics for some years and a magnetic superconductor had already been found. The problem was that it only kept its properties at -150 oC, an excessively low temperature for industrial applications. The new Swedish material keeps its properties in temperatures up to 125 oC.

The technology is believed to be capable of replacing a great deal of today's electronics. One of the reasons is that today's computers process information using semiconductor chips and store it on magnetic discs. With spintronics it may become possible to merge both parts into a single chip.

This article was originally published by Øresund IT Magasine (nr. 5 - 2004). You can download the magazine in PDF format on Publications.