A Spintronic Room Temperature High Purity Germanium Gamma Radiation Spectrometer

Recent breakthroughs in the emerging field of spintronics (short for spin-based electronics) suggest that it may be possible to develop a high purity germanium detector that operates at room temperature. This tantalizing possibility is due to the discovery that the resistance of a semiconductor device with anti-aligned spintronic front and back contacts is independent of the intrinsic carrier concentration and depends only on the alignment and polarization of the contacts. The objective of the proposed research program is to develop and demonstrate the world¿s first spintronic gamma-ray spectrometer. If successful, the proposed spintronic HPGe detector has the potential to provide a room temperature energy resolution far surpassing any existing instrument.