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Controlling Electric Signals with Insulating Antiferromagnets and Insulating Ferromagnets

Project description

A new way to tackle power dissipation

In the world of electronic devices, power dissipation looms as a critical issue. The loss of energy caused by charge transport not only hampers performance of conventional electronics and spintronics but also contributes to global energy consumption. In this context, the EU-funded INSULATRONICS project will leverage antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic insulators to bypass power losses associated with charge transport. Through innovative techniques like spin-transfer torques and spin-pumping, researchers will strive to drastically reduce power consumption. Success in this endeavour could unlock a future of highly efficient oscillators, logic devices, memories, and quantum processing. Stay tuned as scientists rewrite the rules of energy-efficient technology.

Objective

The proposal aims to facilitate a revolution of information and communication technologies by controlling electric signals with antiferromagnetic insulators and ferromagnetic insulators. We recently discovered that antiferromagnets can be active components in spintronics devices despite their lack of a macroscopic magnetic moment, and even when they are insulating.

Conventional electronics- and spintronics-based logic and memory devices, interconnects, and microwave oscillators are based on (spin-polarized) charge transport, which inherently dissipates power due to ohmic losses. The research proposed seeks to determine the extents to which “Insulatronics” has the potential to control the electric and thermal signal generation, transmission, and detection in more power-efficient ways.

Insulatronics is profoundly different because there are no moving charges involved so the power reduction is significant. We hope to establish the extents to which spin-waves and coherent magnons in antiferromagnetic insulators and ferromagnetic insulators can be strongly coupled to electric and thermal currents in adjacent conductors and utilize this coupling to control electric signals. The coupling will be facilitated by spin-transfer torques and spin-pumping – a technique we pioneered – as well as spin-orbit torques and its reciprocal process of charge-pumping.

The core of this project focuses on the theoretical and fundamental challenges facing Insulatronics. Beyond the duration of the project, if we are successful, the use of spin signals in insulators with extremely low power dissipation may enable superior low-power technologies such as oscillators, logic devices, interconnects, non-volatile random access memories, and perhaps even quantum information processing.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2014-ADG

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Host institution

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 140 502,50
Address
HOGSKOLERINGEN 1
7491 Trondheim
Norway

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Region
Norge Trøndelag Trøndelag
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 140 502,50

Beneficiaries (1)

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