Suitability for Digital Logic and Scaling of Atomistic Magnetic QCA

Electronic logic circuits represented by silicon CMOS transistors scaled for the past 40 years to reach nanoscale device sizes. Currently the search is on for alternative, "beyond CMOS", logic devices, which might have certain advantages compared to electronic logic and will enable further scaling of logic circuits. Spintronics (spin-based logic) is one such possibility. However, schemes for spintronic devices are often proposed and pursued without the analysis of their suitability for digital logic. Here we analyze one type of spintronic devices, magnetic quantum cellular automata (MQCA), verify that it satisfies necessary requirements, and determine its scaling trends.