Antiferromagnetic CuMnAs multi-level memory cell with microelectronic compatibility

K. Olejník (), V. Schuler, X. Marti, V. Novák, Z. Kašpar, P. Wadley, R. P. Campion, K. W. Edmonds, B. L. Gallagher, J. Garces, M. Baumgartner, P. Gambardella and T. Jungwirth
Additional contact information
K. Olejník: Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
V. Schuler: Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
X. Marti: Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
V. Novák: Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Z. Kašpar: Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
P. Wadley: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham
R. P. Campion: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham
K. W. Edmonds: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham
B. L. Gallagher: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham
J. Garces: IGS Research
M. Baumgartner: ETH Zürich
P. Gambardella: ETH Zürich
T. Jungwirth: Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Antiferromagnets offer a unique combination of properties including the radiation and magnetic field hardness, the absence of stray magnetic fields, and the spin-dynamics frequency scale in terahertz. Recent experiments have demonstrated that relativistic spin-orbit torques can provide the means for an efficient electric control of antiferromagnetic moments. Here we show that elementary-shape memory cells fabricated from a single-layer antiferromagnet CuMnAs deposited on a III–V or Si substrate have deterministic multi-level switching characteristics. They allow for counting and recording thousands of input pulses and responding to pulses of lengths downscaled to hundreds of picoseconds. To demonstrate the compatibility with common microelectronic circuitry, we implemented the antiferromagnetic bit cell in a standard printed circuit board managed and powered at ambient conditions by a computer via a USB interface. Our results open a path towards specialized embedded memory-logic applications and ultra-fast components based on antiferromagnets.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15434 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15434

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15434

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().