Voltage-based magnetization switching and reading in magnetoelectric spin-orbit nanodevices.

As CMOS technologies face challenges in dimensional and voltage scaling, the demand for novel logic devices has never been greater, with spin-based devices offering scaling potential, at the cost of significantly high switching energies. Alternatively, magnetoelectric materials are predicted to enable low-power magnetization control, a solution with limited device-level results. Here, we demonstrate voltage-based magnetization switching and reading in nanodevices at room temperature, enabled by exchange coupling between multiferroic BiFeO and ferromagnetic CoFe, for writing, and spin-to-charge current conversion between CoFe and Pt, for reading.

Enabling ultra-low-voltage switching in BaTiO.

Single crystals of BaTiO exhibit small switching fields and energies, but thin-film performance is considerably worse, thus precluding their use in next-generation devices. Here, we demonstrate high-quality BaTiO thin films with nearly bulk-like properties. Thickness scaling provides access to the coercive voltages (<100 mV) and fields (<10 kV cm) required for future applications and results in a switching energy of <2 J cm (corresponding to <2 aJ per bit in a 10 × 10 × 10 nm device).

Novel Spin-Orbit Torque Generation at Room Temperature in an All-Oxide Epitaxial La Sr MnO /SrIrO System.

Spin-orbit torques (SOTs) that arise from materials with large spin-orbit coupling offer a new pathway for energy-efficient and fast magnetic information storage. SOTs in conventional heavy metals and topological insulators are explored extensively, while 5d transition metal oxides, which also host ions with strong spin-orbit coupling, are a relatively new territory in the field of spintronics. An all-oxide, SrTiO (STO)//La Sr MnO (LSMO)/SrIrO (SIO) heterostructure with lattice-matched crystal structure is synthesized, exhibiting an epitaxial and atomically sharp interface between the ferromagnetic LSMO and the high spin-orbit-coupled metal SIO.