IBM reports some advances in their racetrack memory program, and they are now able to measure the movement and processing of data as a magnetic pattern on a nanowire (which is 1,000 finer than a human hair).
Racetrack memory uses electron spin to move data on nanowires at hundreds of miles per hour - and has the potential to be very lower power with high densities.
Researchers from the Institut Català de Nanotecnologia (ICN), in Barcelona have demonstrated a new device that induces electron spin motion without net electric current. They call this device a 'ratchet', in analogy to a ratchet wrench which provides uniform rotation from oscillatory motion. The Spin Ratchets achieve directed spin transport in one direction, in the presence of an oscillating signal. Most important, this signal could be an oscillatory current that results from environmental charge noise; thus future devices based on this concept could function by gathering energy from the environment.
The ratchet efficiency can be very high - reported results show electron polarizations of the order of 50%, but they could easily exceed 90% with device design improvements. The spin ratchet, which relies on a single electron transistor with a superconducting island and normal metal leads, is able to discriminate the electron spin, one electron at a time. The devices can also function in a âdiodeâ regime that resolves spin with nearly 100% efficacy and, given that they work at the single-electron level, they could be utilized to address fundamental questions of quantum mechanics in the solid state or to help prepare the path for ultrapowerful quantum or spin computers.
Dr. Colm Durkan from Cambridge University has been awarded funding from the Samsung Global Research Outreach (GRO) programme, for research and development of novel magnetic devices for information processing.
Colm and his team are interested in the fundamentals underpinning Spintronics. Colm says; 'There is a large scientific community investigating novel materials for data storage, whereas our interest is in the size effect of soft magnetic materials in general. Our expertise is specifically in the fabrication and functional characterization of nanostructures by scanning probe microscopy, combined with state-of-the art modeling.'
Paul Haney and Mark Stiles from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) developed a new theory of current-induced torques that generalizes the relationship between spin transfer torques, total angular momentum current, and mechanical torques. This new theory is also applicable to more materials than previous theories.
The basic idea is that there are two types of current-induced torques: a mechanical torque acting on the lattice, and a spin transfer torque (STT) acting on the magnetization. STT is a known phenomenon that is the basic of several technologies such as STT-MRAM and nanoscale microwave oscillators.
UCLA has received a $8.4 million grant from DARPA to research ultra-low-power, non-volatile logic technologies. This is the same DARPA project that also awarded a contract to Grandis on the same subject a couple of weeks ago.
The UCLA researchers are aiming to develop a prototype non-volatile logic circuit, which could lead to the development of new classes of ultraâlow-power, high-performance electronics. The research program will explore three technical areas: the behavior of nanoscale magnetic materials; the fabrication and testing of a non-volatile logic circuit; and the development of novel circuits and circuit-design tools.
The project will be managed at UCLA by research associate Pedram Khalili and will be led under principal investigators Kang Wang and Alex Khitun. It will involved researchers from UCLA, UC Irvine, Yale University and the University of Massachusetts.
Researchers from the UK and Switzerland have shown that a magnetically polarized current can be manipulated by electric fields. This could pave the way towards combining memory and processing power on the same chip.
The researchers have investigated how layers of Lithium Fluoride (LiF) - a material that has an intrinsic electric field - can modify the spin of electrons transported through these spin valves. This is the first time that it was shown how you can proactively control spin with electric fields.