Laboratoire de Physique Théorique
Toulouse - UMR 5152

"Spintronics" is a study of systems where conversion between electric and spin currents takes place and can be employed for useful technical purposes. Initially spin current production was achieved through the use of ferromagnets, so that the exchange interaction was responsible for spintronic effects. At present, a lot of interest is generated by systems where the spin-orbit interaction is producing spin currents and no ferromagnetic parts are required. This talk will give an overview of spin-orbit effects, such as spin Hall and inverse spin Hall effects, and discuss a number of systems where they manifest themselves in interesting ways.