A new study conducted at the University of Vienna, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, and the Helmholtz Centers in Berlin and Dresden takes an important step in the challenge to miniaturize computing devices and to make them more energy-efficient. The work published in the renowned scientific journal Science Advances opens up new possibilities for creating reprogrammable magnonic circuits by exciting spin waves by alternating currents and redirecting these waves on demand. The experiments were carried out at the Maxymus beamline at BESSY II.
The central processing units (CPUs) that we use in our laptops, desktops or even phones are using billions of transistors, which are based on the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. With the increasing need to miniaturize these devices, several physical limitations are raising concerns for their sustainability. In addition, high power consumptions and energy losses, push scientists to search for alternative computing architectures.
One of the promising candidates are magnons, the quanta of spin waves. “Imagine a calm lake. If we let a stone fall into water, the resulting waves will propagate away from the point of generation. Now, we replace the lake with a magnetic material and the stone with an antenna. The propagating waves are called spin waves and can be used to transfer energy and information from one point to another with minimal losses,” says Sabri Koraltan from the University of Vienna, first author of the recent study published in the journal Science Advances. Once generated, the spin waves can be used for magnonic devices to perform classical and unconventional computing tasks. “To reduce the footprint of magnonic devices, we need to use spin waves with short wavelengths, which are difficult to generate using state-of-the-art nano antennas due to limited efficiency,” adds Sebastian Wintz from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and the coordinator of the research project. Nano antennas can only be fabricated in clean rooms, highly specialized nanofabrication facilities, using advanced lithography techniques.
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