Researchers improve ability to write and store information on electronic devices
Posted by: Chris Williamson in Singularity NewsFrom Argonne National Laboratory:
Matthias Bode, Center for Nanoscale Materials, is shown with his enhanced spin polarized scanning tunneling microscope (SP-STM). His enhanced technique allows scientists to observe the magnetism of single atoms. Use of this method could lead to better magnetic storage devices for computers and other electronics.
ARGONNE, Ill. (Sept. 13, 2007) � New research led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory physicist Matthias Bode provides a more thorough understanding of new mechanisms, which makes it possible to switch a magnetic nanoparticle without any magnetic field and may enable computers to more accurately write and store information.
Bode and four colleagues at the University of Hamburg used a special scanning tunneling microscope equipped with a magnetic probe tip to force a spin current through a small magnetic structure. The researchers were able to show that the structure’s magnetization direction is not affected by a small current, but can be influenced if the spin current is sufficiently high.
Most computers today use dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, in which each piece of binary digital information, or bit, is stored in an individual capacitor in an integrated circuit. Bode’s experiment focused on magneto-resistive random access memory, or MRAM, which stores data in magnetic storage elements consisting of two ferromagnetic layers separated by a thin non-magnetic spacer. While one of the two layers remains polarized in a constant direction, the other layer becomes polarized through the application of an external magnetic field either in the same direction as the top layer (for a “0″) or in the opposite direction (for a “1″). more>>>
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