A new spin on magnetism with applications in information processing

Recent advances in magnetism research are likely to have an important impact on electronics and information processing. These advances use the electron’s magnetic moment (spin) to transmit, write and store information. They enable new devices that operate at high speed with very low energy consumption. The information is stored in the orientation of electron magnetic moments in magnetic materials and can persist without power; energy is only needed to write and read the information. Important physics concepts include the interconversion of electrical (charge) currents into spin currents, the efficiency of the interconversion, controlling the currents’ spin polarization direction and the associated spin torques on magnetic order. In this talk I will highlight the new physics concepts that have enabled these advances and discuss some of their applications in information processing. I plan to present my group's studies of current-induced switching of magnetization in magnetic tunnel junction nanopillars. This includes our recent experimental studies that demonstrate that the stochastic nature of the switching can be used to generate truly random numbers at GHz rates in devices that are very attractive for applications, such as for cryptography and Monte Carlo simulations [1]. I will also show that currents can exert torques that affect order in an insulating antiferromagnet α-Fe₂O₃ [2,3], materials that are interesting because of their even higher (THz) frequency spin dynamics.