Thursday, March 30, 2023

Researchers create spintronics manufacturing process that could revolutionize the electronics industry

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"... The new process will allow for faster, more efficient spintronics devices that can be scaled down smaller than ever before. ​​ ...
Spintronic devices, which leverage the spin of electrons rather than the electrical charge to store data, provide a promising and more efficient alternative to traditional transistor-based chips. These materials also have the potential to be non-volatile, meaning they require less power and can store memory and perform computing even after you remove their power source. ...
For the first time, the researchers were able to grow iron palladium on a silicon wafer using an 8-inch wafer-capable multi-chamber ultrahigh vacuum sputtering system, a one-of-a-kind piece of equipment among academic institutions across the country and only available at the University of Minnesota.
“This work is showing for the first time in the world that you can grow this material, which can be scaled down to smaller than five nanometers, on top of a semiconductor industry-compatible substrate, so-called CMOS+X strategies,” ..."

From the abstract:
"As a promising alternative to the mainstream CoFeB/MgO system with interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), L10-FePd and its synthetic antiferromagnet (SAF) structure with large crystalline PMA can support spintronic devices with sufficient thermal stability at sub-5 nm sizes. However, the compatibility requirement of preparing L10-FePd thin films on Si/SiO2 wafers is still unmet. In this paper, high-quality L10-FePd and its SAF on Si/SiO2 wafers are prepared by coating the amorphous SiO2 surface with an MgO(001) seed layer. The prepared L10-FePd single layer and SAF stack are highly (001)-textured, showing strong PMA, low damping, and sizeable interlayer exchange coupling, respectively. Systematic characterizations, including advanced X-ray diffraction measurement and atomic resolution-scanning transmission electron microscopy, are conducted to explain the outstanding performance of L10-FePd layers. A fully-epitaxial growth that starts from MgO seed layer, induces the (001) texture of L10-FePd, and extends through the SAF spacer is observed. This study makes the vision of scalable spintronics more practical."




Figure 2
a) Stack structure of the samples with (bottom) and without (top) the MgO seed layer. ...
b) Hysteresis loops ...
c) RAH-Hext loops 


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