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Spin-torque building blocks

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 11–20 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The discovery of the spin-torque effect has made magnetic nanodevices realistic candidates for active elements of memory devices and applications. Magnetoresistive effects allow the read-out of increasingly small magnetic bits, and the spin torque provides an efficient tool to manipulate — precisely, rapidly and at low energy cost — the magnetic state, which is in turn the central information medium of spintronic devices. By keeping the same magnetic stack, but by tuning a device's shape and bias conditions, the spin torque can be engineered to build a variety of advanced magnetic nanodevices. Here we show that by assembling these nanodevices as building blocks with different functionalities, novel types of computing architecture can be envisaged. We focus in particular on recent concepts such as magnonics and spintronic neural networks.

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Figure 1: Spin-torque basics.
Figure 2: Magnetization dynamics scenarios under the influence of in-plane spin torque as a function of field amplitude.
Figure 3: Underlying principles of spin-torque nanodevices.
Figure 4: Spin-torque building blocks.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the spin-torque team at Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales, especially A. Fert, and all present and past students. We thank all the team of S. Yuasa in AIST Tsukuba Japan for invaluable collaboration. We are grateful to O. Temam, D. Querlioz, P. Bessière and J. Droulez for stimulating discussions. J. G. and N. L. acknowledge financial support from the European Research Council (ERC “NanoBrain” 2010 Stg 259068).

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  1. Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales, 1 Avenue Augustin Fresnel, Campus de l'Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, 91767, France

    N. Locatelli, V. Cros & J. Grollier

  2. Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, 91405, France

    N. Locatelli, V. Cros & J. Grollier

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  1. N. Locatelli
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Locatelli, N., Cros, V. & Grollier, J. Spin-torque building blocks. Nature Mater 13, 11–20 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3823

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