This is one of the first application-orientated books on the subject. The main topics are magnetic sensors with high resolutions and magnetic read heads with high sensitivities, required for hard-disk drives with recording densities of several gigabytes. Another important subject is novel magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) with non-volatile non-destructive and radiation-hard characteristics.

Since the discovery of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect in 1988, spintronics has been presented as a new technology paradigm, awarded by the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007. Initially used in read heads of hard disk drives, and while disputing a piece of the market to the flash memories, GMR devices have broadened their range of usage by growing towards magnetic field sensing applications in a huge range of scenarios. Potential applications at the time of the discovery have become real in the last two decades. Definitively, GMR was born to stand. In this sense, selected successful approaches of GMR based sensors in different applications: space, automotive, microelectronics, biotechnology ... are collected in the present book. While keeping a practical orientation, the fundamentals as well as the current trends and challenges of this technology are also analyzed. In this sense, state of the art contributions from academy and industry can be found through the contents. This book can be used by starting researchers, postgraduate students and multidisciplinary scientists in order to have a reference text in this topical fascinating field.

This book focuses on an increasingly important area of materials science and technology, namely, the fabrication and properties of artificial materials where slabs of magnetized materials are sandwiched between slabs of nonmagnetized materials. It includes reviews by experts on the theory and descriptions of the various experimental techniques such as those using nuclear or electron spin probes, as well as optical, X-ray or neutron probes. It also reviews potential applications such as the giant magnetoresistance, and one specialized preparation technique, the electrodeposition. The various chapters are tutorial in nature, making the subject accessible to nonspecialists, as well as useful to researchers in the field.

This unified overview of recent progress in a growing, multi-disciplinary field places special emphasis on the industrial applications of magnetic multilayered materials. The text describes a wide range of physical aspects, together with experimental and theoretical methods.

Over two volumes and 1500 pages, the Handbook of Spintronics will cover all aspects of spintronics science and technology, including fundamental physics, materials properties and processing, established and emerging device technology and applications. Comprising 60 chapters from a large international team of leading researchers across academia and industry, the Handbook provides readers with an up-to-date and comprehensive review of this dynamic field of research. The opening chapters focus on the fundamental physical principles of spintronics in metals and semiconductors, including an introduction to spin quantum computing. Materials systems are then considered, with sections on metallic thin films and multilayers, magnetic tunnelling structures, hybrids, magnetic semiconductors and molecular spintronic materials. A separate section reviews the various characterisation methods appropriate to spintronics materials, including STM, spin-polarised photoemission, x-ray diffraction techniques and spin-polarised SEM. The third part of the Handbook contains chapters on the state of the art in device technology and applications, including spin valves, GMR and MTJ devices, MRAM technology, spin transistors and spin logic devices, spin torque devices, spin pumping and spin dynamics and other topics such as spin caloritronics. Each chapter considers the challenges faced by researchers in that area and contains some indications of the direction that future work in the field is likely to take. This reference work will be an essential and long-standing resource for the spintronics community.

The study of the spontaneous formation of nanostructures in single crystals of several compounds is now a major area of research in strongly correlated electrons. These structures appear to originate in the competition of phases. The book addresses nanoscale phase separation, focusing on the manganese oxides known as manganites that have the colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) effect of potential relevance for device applications. It is argued that the nanostructures are at the heart of the CMR phenomenon. The book contains updated information on manganite research directed to experts, both theorists and experimentalists. However, graduate students or postdocs will find considerable introductory material, including elements of computational physics.

This book gathers, for the first time, an overview of nearly all of the magnetic sensors that exist today. The book is offering the readers a thorough and comprehensive knowledge from basics to state-of-the-art and is therefore suitable for both beginners and experts. From the more common and popular AMR magnetometers and up to the recently developed NV center magnetometers, each chapter is describing a specific type of sensor and providing all the information that is necessary to understand the magnetometer behavior including theoretical background, noise model, materials, electronics, design and fabrication techniques, etc.