Soon and very
soon we could be having fast and dense energy saving chips for computation and
memory purposes.
The results of
this phenomenon are that it will reduce the amount of energy used to store or get
a single bit of data by a factor of ten thousand. These findings are published
in a journal known as Natures Materials.
According to the
Journal’s senior author, Geoffrey Beach, there are many hints that have been
reported for years now concerning the phenomenon. The only thing is that these
reports lacked proper explanation till now.
Beach also added
that the new findings could take away all the limitations associated with the
use and control of magnetic
materials. To him, this was a whole new way of approaching the design of
materials that are magnetic.
The very center
of the phenomenon is not within materials that are magnetic but rather in what
neighbors them. What the research team did is using films of ferromagnetic
material that are very thin and deposited them on a metal base which had an
oxide layer material at the top. How the ferromagnetic layer behaves is
actually dependent on the metal that the oxide layer is on.
Materials that
are ferromagnetic have two poles, one for north and the other south. When they
are used for storing data on a hard disk the result is separation of domains
that are tiny on the surface. This makes the poles point up or down and this
represents zeros.
The domains
usually move along the surface following the same direction as that of the
electron flow.
In previous
cases the result was movement in the other direction and this left the
researchers disturbed. It is the MIT team that discovered that using a slab of
platinum is what brought about the backward movement.
In situations
that were similar the direction was normal unless the film was put on a metal
tantalum. This showed that the Ferro magnet itself was not responsible but what
it was next to was. Tantalum
and platinum
are not magnetic thus they do not have any effect on magnetic material.
In both cases
there is an effect that changes how the magnetic domains switch one another
that is from up to down and vice versa. This change is
random but in the sandwich of thin film there is an alignment in the rotations
and there is consistency in turning.
It is this
strange effect that has enabled researchers to show that domains are powerfully
pushed by currents than by materials that are conventional. They also showed
that the direction of a domain can be controlled through the selection of the
underneath metal that is non-magnetic.
“There are very
few systems in nature that have this preferred way to rotate,” Beach says. Examples
are those molecules that constitute the basis for life, including those
assembling in the DNA molecules.
Additionally, a
few magnetic materials have shown this property, “but only in very exotic
structures,” he says: at temperatures just slightly above absolute zero, and
only in a perfect single crystal.
About Stanford Magnets：
Based in California, Stanford
Magnets has been involved in the R&D and sales of licensed Rare-earth magnets, Neodymium magnets and SmCo
magnets, ceramic magnets, flexible magnets and magnetic assemblies since the
mid of 1980s. We supply all these types of magnets in a wide range of shapes,
sizes and grades.
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