New data-decoding approach could lead to faster, smaller digital tech

Evgeny Tsymbal, Ding-Fu Shao and their colleagues have charged to the forefront of spintronics, a next-gen class of data storage and processing poised to complement the digital electronics that have ruled the realm of high tech for decades. Ahead of that future, though, loom nanoscale obstacles whose size belies their difficulty. With the wind of a $20 million National Science Foundation grant at their back, the physicists may be on their way to surmounting an especially tricky one: finding order amid disorder and data amid seeming disarray. Beyond that obstacle lie two prizes, density and speed, that could make modern-day devices look gluttonous and sloth-like in hindsight.