Nanoscale Spintronic Microwave Devices: From Fundamental Mechanisms to Emerging Applications

With the rapid deployment of next-generation communication technologies, the demand for highly sensitive and miniaturized microwave detectors has become extremely urgent. Conventional semiconductor diodes suffer from intrinsic drawbacks when detecting submicrowatt signals. Spintronics provides an optimal alternative via the spin rectification effect, which enables widely tunable, low-power microwave rectification at room temperature. This Review examines recent advances in spintronic microwave rectifiers and their future prospects. We discuss diverse physical platforms, including devices with uniform magnetization and special nonuniform topological spin textures. Furthermore, we highlight multiorder-of-magnitude performance improvements in such devices, focusing on strategies to boost sensitivity, reduce noise equivalent power (NEP), and extend broadband as well as multiband detection capacity. Apart from core performance metrics, we discuss emerging applications: ambient radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting, high-resolution vector microwave-field imaging, monolithically integrated spintronic microwave systems, and microwave neural networks that can directly process high-frequency signals for neuromorphic computing. By sorting out the complete technical development route of this field, this Review aims to provide a systematic theoretical framework and technical references to promote the development of spintronic devices for next-generation wireless communication and edge artificial intelligence.