All Magneto-Electric Spin Logic Gates

Descrizione del progetto

Una nuova era per le tecnologie basate sulla logica dello spin

Alla luce del crescente affidamento riposto sui dispositivi elettronici, si è intensificata la ricerca di un’informatica efficiente dal punto di vista energetico. Tuttavia, la legge di Moore impone dei limiti all’incessante ricerca di transistor sempre più piccoli e veloci a causa dell’aumento della densità di potenza e del riscaldamento dei chip. Poiché queste limitazioni superano livelli che è possibile gestire, risulta necessario allontanarsi dalle tecnologie CMOS convenzionali. Con il sostegno del programma di azioni Marie Skłodowska-Curie, il progetto ALLME sfrutterà le proprietà uniche dello spin e della carica negli elettroni per introdurre un approccio innovativo alla computazione. L’obiettivo del progetto è duplice: consentire un consumo energetico estremamente basso e dar vita a porte logiche complesse. ALLME si impegna a spianare la strada per una nuova era delle tecnologie basate sulla logica dello spin.

Obiettivo

The surge in electronic equipment used daily across the globe, from end-user devices to data centres, has led to a craving for more energy-efficient computing devices. However, the current Moore’s Law epitomised miniaturisation process of CMOS transistors will be gradually limited by increasing power densities and associated chip heating. Therefore, much research has been devoted to the development of alternative computing devices.

Spintronic devices, which exploit both the charge and the spin of electrons, are seen as a promising beyond-CMOS approach due to their ultralow energy per operation, non-volatility, and capability to build more expressive logic gates. Despite much recent success in realizing spintronic logic gates such as those that employ magnetic domain walls or spin waves as information carriers, there are two major limitations that impede the inclusion of such devices in microelectronic technologies. The first is the lack of energy-efficient transducers for interconversion of signals between the magnetic and electrical domains. The second issue is the inability to propagate magnetic information carriers over large distances in the magnetic domain, i.e. the lack of magnetic interconnect.

To address these challenges, we propose a novel spin logic device concept (ALLME) based on layered strain-mediated magnetoelectric composites containing both piezoelectric and magnetostrictive materials. By exploiting its magnetoelectric effect, the magnetisation in a nanomagnet can be rotated with voltages, and in the inverse effect, the change in magnetisation will result in a voltage output. ALLME aims to deliver one of the most technologically competitive spin logic concepts, with an emphasis on ultra-low energy consumption and all charge-based interconnects that are readily to be cascaded in complex logic circuits, to solve the long-standing challenges in spin logic.