Manipulating spin in organic spintronics : probing the interplay between the electronic and nuclear spins in organic semiconductors

The growing interest in spin manipulation in the field of spin electronics, or "spintronics," is due to the wealth of exciting possibilities that it offers in areas of magnetic sensing, new types of information storage, low-power electronics, and quantum information processing. Nuclear spin manipulation is especially attractive, as nuclear spin lifetimes can reach minutes or more. Addressing nuclear spins in a direct way is, however, difficult. Fortunately, indirect addressing is possible via their hyperfine interaction with electronic spins, which can be conveniently probed electronically or optically. To date, research efforts have focused mainly on conventional semiconductors such as silicon, germanium, diamond, and III–V compound semiconductors. On page 1487 of this issue, Malissa et al. (1) demonstrate the combined manipulation of the electronic and nuclear spins in an organic semiconductor