Communication Between Magnetic Tunnel Junctions Using Spin-Polarized Current for Logic Applications

Author

Lyle, Andrew ; Yao, Xiaofeng ; Ebrahimi, Farbod ; Harms, Jonathan ; Wang, Jian-Ping

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Volume

46

Issue

6

fYear

2010

fDate

6/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2216

Lastpage

2219

Abstract

We investigated spin-polarized current controlled magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) connected with a nano-magnetic channel using micromagnetic simulations. A spin polarized current is used to switch the MTJ and form a domain wall in the nanochannel that is captured at a notch in the channel. A current can then be applied along the nanochannel to drive the domain wall to the other MTJ. The nanochannel design was optimized by varying MTJ pillar size, nanochannel width, material, and notch sizes. Both in-plane and perpendicular anisotropy were simulated. Perpendicular anisotropy was found to be the most beneficial by alleviating the dominate effect of shape anisotropy. Four different nanochannels were connected to a single MTJ with perpendicular anisotropy and a domain wall formed in each channel. This allows fan out to be realized and consequently more complex logic functions. The current densities to switch the MTJ elements and drive the domain wall were found to be on the order of 1 Ã— 10⁸ A/cm² and 6 Ã— 109 A/cm², respectively.

Keywords

current density; magnetic domain walls; magnetic multilayers; magnetic tunnelling; micromagnetics; perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; spin polarised transport; MTJ; current densities; domain wall; in-plane anisotropy; logic functions; magnetic tunnel junctions; micromagnetic simulations; nanomagnetic channel; perpendicular anisotropy; shape anisotropy; spin-polarized current; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Communication switching; Communication system control; Design optimization; Logic; Magnetic domain walls; Magnetic tunneling; Micromagnetics; Polarization; Switches; Magnetic logic; micromagnetic simulation; nanochannel; spin logic; spin torque transfer; spin-polarized current;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TMAG.2010.2045355

Filename

5467461