News

Spintronics: a new speed record in magnetic nanotechnology

(3 March 2003)

Scientists at the University of Durham have set a new ‘magnetic land-speed record’ for sending a piece of computer information with the novel technology of spintronics.

Their pioneering work harnesses the magnetic spin of electrons, as well as electrical charge, to store and handle data. Spintronics offers a whole new basis for computing at greater levels of miniaturisation and more versatile applications than with conventional electronic microchips.

The Durham team, led by Physics Lecturer Dr Russell Cowburn, has already shown how magnetic properties can be used for storage and also for some fundamental steps in data processing. Now they have sent a signal representing a ‘bit’ of computer information more than five times faster than had been achieved previously in this field of work. The scientific journal Nature Materials has published a report on their research detailing the advances they have made.

The operating speed has gone up from about 275 metres per second (or 620 mph) to 1500 mps (or 3400 mph) – roughly the equivalent of moving up from travelling on a standard jet aircraft flying at 2.5 times the speed of Concorde.

Dr Cowburn said: “In terms of the new technology, it is a very significant step forward. Previously it was thought that very small-scale technology might be slow, but we can now demonstrate that ‘small can be fast’ - and that widens the scope for development in this area of nanotechnology.”

“Small” in this context is in the realms of nanotechnology, where wires and other devices are built on extremely small scales, only a few atoms across. Magnetic microchips are more energy-efficient than electrical ones and they don’t overheat or lose their memory when the power in switched off.

For the speed test, Dr Cowburn’s colleague Dr Del Atkinson supervised the construction of a nano-scale ‘race-track’, a nickel-iron wire only 200 nanometres wide (about 400 of them would be the width of a human hair). They sent a magnetic ‘pulse’ along the track, round corners and past monitoring devices to clock the speed.

The researchers have developed some sophisticated equipment to make this measurement, and recognised that it could be of use to a number of other scientists. They have therefore started a high-tech spin-out company called Durham Magneto Optics Ltd, which manufactures in the North East and which has recently made a sale to a Silicon Valley company in California.

Further information:
Dr Russell Cowburn Department of Physics 0191 374 2388
Keith Seacroft, University Public Relations Office 0191 374 2946