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The silicon-based technology that is used today to access and compute information is reaching its limits. To further improve computing capacity, this essentially two-dimensional technology, as STUART PARKIN puts it, needs to give way to the three-dimensional approach of spintronic devices that use not only electric current but also the spin of the electrons. In this video, he explains how the research team created a new type of storage device. It consists of billions of so-called race tracks which are essentially vertical columns of magnetic material in which tiny magnetic regions representing zeros and ones are stored. These can be manipulated using a current of spin polarized electrons that can move information up and down these race tracks. During the last three to four years, the researchers discovered four distinct new physical phenomena that enable them to move the magnetic regions in these racetracks extremely efficiently with current pulses. This could pave the way to solid-state devices with about one hundred times the capacity of today's solid-state drives because of the three-dimensional nature of this new concept that is entirely derived from the new physics of spintronics.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10342
Institution
Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics
The Institute has substantial experimental and theoretical research programs that are focussed on novel materials with useful functionalities. Of particular interest are spintronic materials and devices, neuromorphic devices and systems, nano-photonics, topological metals and insulators. The Institute is involved in extensive collaborative research projects, both National and International, with partners in China, India, Europe including Israel, and the USA. Besides, the institute has an extensive infrastructure that includes a state of the art modelshop, electronics workshop, a supercomputer, and a clean-room, as well as a wide range of modern experimental facilities.
Original publication
Suppression of Metal-Insulator Transition in VO2 by Electric Field–Induced Oxygen Vacancy Formation
Science
Published in 2013
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