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Voltage-controlled domain wall traps in ferromagnetic nanowires

Nature Nanotechnology volume 8, pages 411–416 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electrical control of magnetism has the potential to bring about revolutionary new spintronic devices1,2,3,4,5, many of which rely on efficient manipulation of magnetic domain walls in ferromagnetic nanowires2,3,4. Recently, it has been shown that voltage-induced charge accumulation at a metal–oxide interface can influence domain wall motion in ultrathin metallic ferromagnets6,7,8, but the effects have been relatively modest and limited to the slow, thermally activated regime9. Here we show that a voltage can generate non-volatile switching of magnetic properties at the nanoscale by modulating interfacial chemistry rather than charge density. Using a solid-state ionic conductor as a gate dielectric10,11, we generate unprecedentedly strong voltage-controlled domain wall traps that function as non-volatile, electrically programmable and switchable pinning sites. Pinning strengths of at least 650 Oe can be readily achieved, enough to bring to a standstill domain walls travelling at speeds of at least ∼20 m s−1. We exploit this new magneto-ionic effect to demonstrate a prototype non-volatile memory device in which voltage-controlled domain wall traps facilitate electrical bit selection in a magnetic nanowire register.

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Figure 1: Experiment schematics and magnetic hysteresis loops.
Figure 2: Space- and time-resolved domain expansion.
Figure 3: Control of domain wall propagation in magnetic nanowire conduits.
Figure 4: Properties of domain wall traps in nanowire conduits.
Figure 5: Domain wall trap-based three-bit register.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF-ECCS -1128439). Technical support from D. Bono, M. Tarkanian and E. Rapoport is acknowledged. The authors thank S.R. Bishop for discussions on solid oxide ion conductors. Work was performed using instruments in the MIT Nanostructures Laboratory, the Scanning Electron-Beam Lithography facility at the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and the Center for Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. S.E. acknowledges financial support from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Uwe Bauer, Satoru Emori & Geoffrey S. D. Beach

Authors
  1. Uwe Bauer
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  2. Satoru Emori
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  3. Geoffrey S. D. Beach
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Contributions

U.B. proposed the study and G.B. supervised it. U.B. and G.B. designed the experiments with input from S.E. S.E. and U.B. prepared the samples. U.B. performed experiments on continuous film samples, and U.B. and S.E. performed experiments on nanowire samples. U.B. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript with assistance from G.B. and input from S.E. All authors discussed the results.

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Correspondence to Geoffrey S. D. Beach.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Bauer, U., Emori, S. & Beach, G. Voltage-controlled domain wall traps in ferromagnetic nanowires. Nature Nanotech 8, 411–416 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.96

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