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Science 9 February 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5506, pp. 999 - 1000
DOI: 10.1126/science.1059019
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Perspectives

APPLIED PHYSICS:
A New Twist for Magnets

Dan Ralph

Current-induced magnetic fields are at the core of widely used technologies such as electric motors and magnetic memories. But, as Ralph explains in his Perspective, there is a second, fundamentally distinct mechanism by which an electric current can reorient a magnet. For very small devices, this mechanism, called spin transfer, can be much more powerful than current-induced magnetic fields. He highlights the report by Weber et al., who have performed detailed measurements of spin transfer in ferromagnetic thin films.

The author is in the Physics Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. E-mail: ralph{at}ccmr.cornell.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)