Wow. The author does a fantastic job of making absolutely no sense whatsoever. It would be cool to have some idea of what this "breakthrough" actually involves...but alas, we get jargon randomly arranged into unintelligible nonsense.

And I have a physics degree.

Can anyone explain how this is suposed to work?!

Piers

We will need a Physicist to chime in with the details on Spintronics.  I remember learning the following:  We are used to the idea that electrons orbit an atomic nucleus just as the earth revolves around the sun.  Lesser known is the fact that electrons also spin in place, just as the earth rotates on its axis.  In fact, electrons can spin in different directions – referred to as “up” spin and “down” spin.  When one material contains electrons with both spins, you get spin polarization – which is magnetization.  Apparently in this battery technology, an external force is used to either alter the spin characteristics (or manipulate the ratio of “up” to “down”) to a non-natural state.  Then, when the devise is allowed to return to its natural state, energy (in this case, electrical energy) is released.