Advancing Microelectronics for Next-Gen Memory and Computing
Yayoi Takamura, professor and chair of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Davis, joins researchers from UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UCLA and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a co-principal investigator on a project exploring how antiferromagnetic spintronics can be used in advanced memory and computing.
The three-year project, which aims to advance microelectronics using antiferromagnetic materials, has received a Collaborative Research and Training Award of nearly $4 million from the UC National Laboratory Fees Research Program.
The award advances engagement among faculty, laboratory scientists and students across UC campuses and Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, and supports cutting-edge and collaborative approaches that generate new knowledge and take advantage of the unique capacities and facilities and enhance UC’s system-wide competitiveness for extramural support in research areas of strategic importance to UC and the national labs.
Titled “Antiferromagnetic spintronics for advanced memory and computing,” the project will study antiferromagnets and investigate their potential to carry spin pulses over long distances with minimal energy loss.
Spintronics is spin-based electronics that exploits spin, which refers to the intrinsic angular momentum of an electron, for information processing. Antiferromagnetic spintronics is a faster and more compact alternative to the current ferromagnetic spintronics used in devices like hard drives and memory chips.
Researchers will take advantage of the wealth of experimental lab facilities and theoretical expertise available across the participating UC campuses as well as those at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
In particular, Takamura’s group will use soft X-ray magnetic spectroscopy and microscopy and scanning NV-center magnetometry (a technique that uses the nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamonds to measure magnetic fields) to study the emergent antiferromagnetic properties of complex oxide thin films and heterostructures.
