In 1971, Mikhail Dyakonov and Vladimir Perel of the Ioffe Institute in Leningrad proposed a new transport phenomenon.1 If one applies an electric field to the ends of a semiconducting strip, they reasoned, electrons would scatter off impurities in a spin‐dependent way. As the electrons make their way along the strip, those with up spins would veer to one side, while those with down spins would veer to the other side.