Find out how researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have created an innovative method for quantifying thermal effects in spintronics, which may lead to faster and more energy-efficient computing.
Breaking the Thermal Barrier
Spintronics — technology that exploits the magnetic angular moment of an electron to permit the exchange of data with very low power requirements — is often held up as a new frontier for electronics. They claim to provide lightning-fast performance and use much less power than their traditional competitors.
As these new revolutionary technologies have been developed and studied, a critical question had not been answered: how does the heating caused by the electric current actually affect their operation?
But now, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have come up with innovative experimental methodology that enables them to accurately measure the amount of heating in spintronic devices and to directly compare it to other effects. The discovery could enable the selection of spintronic materials that are less susceptible to heating, which would ultimately bring about faster and more efficient devices.
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In contrast to normal electronics, where electric charges of electrons are used to carry out tasks, spintronics relies on another fundamental quality of electrons — their spin. This new way of doing things could offer a big jump forward in energy efficient, as their magnetic mode of operation requires significantly lower energy than their electronic counterparts.
In truth, it has been even suggested that spintronics dominated by fast electronics may achieve a speed of conventional computers with an extreme-energy-efficient efficiency—offering the best of both worlds. So far, the biggest hurdle has been developing materials that can be fashioned into these types of devices.
Antiferromagnets, which have alternating spins and very low crosstalk with neighboring devices seem suitable for this purpose. But you cannot use these materials for memory and computing since electric current is needed to control their spin structure — large currents that heat up the devices, affecting consequently the electrical orders in addition to electromagnetic effects.
Conclusion
The breakthrough experimental approach developed by the research team has provided new insights into thermal effects in spintronic devices, to help facilitate a systematic understanding of the heating-current competition essential for emerging technologies. This work sets the stage for developing faster, more energy-efficient computing solutions by establishing a robust framework to improve spintronic device functionalities which in turn could lead to the future of technology.
