Physicists now have found a way to manipulate the spin of an electron with a jolt of voltage from a battery. In a new study, Richard Warburton, a physicist with Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, applied voltage to an electron in a quantum dot (which is a tiny, nanometre-sized semiconductor). The burst of power changed the direction of the electron's spin - which can move either up or down. This also caused it to emit a small particle of light called a photon.
"Usually you have no control over this at all - an electron flips its spin at some point, and you scratch your head and wonder why it happened. But in our experiment, we can choose how long this process takes." - Richard Warburton.