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Applied physics

Champing at the bit

Nature volume 448, pages 544–545 (2007)Cite this article

When two 'bits' of magnetic information race around a nanoscale wire, two factors determine whether or not they survive the course: the condition of the track, and how fast they respond to the starting signal.

Magnetic nanowires — wires of nanometre width made from magnetic materials — are an ideal playground for exploring the fundamentals of magnetism. Because they allow an easy flow of magnetic information, they could also be useful in computer chips: integrated circuits built from complex interconnected networks of nanowires have recently become the subject of intensive research. Writing in Applied Physics Letters1, Hara et al. help to answer some crucial questions. What happens when nanowires carry high-density information at high speed? And how easy is it to synchronize the movement of many bits through the same nanowire without collisions and congestion?

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Figure 1: At the nanoscale races.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Russell P. Cowburn is in the Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK. r.cowburn@imperial.ac.uk,

    Russell P. Cowburn

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  1. Russell P. Cowburn
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The author has declared the filing of a number of patents under his name on domain walls in magnetic nanowires. Under the terms of a funding arrangement between the author, his employers and a private investor, a share of the profits from any commercial uptake of systems based on these intellectual property rights will be returned to the author and his employer.

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Cowburn, R. Champing at the bit. Nature 448, 544–545 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/448544a

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