Spintronics-Info: the spintronics experts

Spintronics is the new science of computers and memory chips that are based on electron spin rather than (or in addition to) the charge (used in electronics). Spintronics is an exciting field that holds promise to build faster and more efficient computers and devices. Spintronics-Info, established in 2007, is the world's leading spintronics industry portal - offering a popular web publication and newsletter.

Recent Spintronic News

Researchers report confinement-induced spin-texture reorientation in ion-patterned nanomagnets

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have partnered with NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and the Institute of Nuclear Physics in the Polish Academy of Sciences to develop a method that facilitates the manufacture of particularly efficient magnetic nanomaterials in a relatively simple process based on inexpensive raw materials. 

Using a highly focused ion beam, they imprint magnetic nanostrips consisting of tiny, vertically aligned nanomagnets onto the materials. This geometry makes the material highly sensitive to external magnetic fields and current pulses.

Read the full story Posted: Dec 10,2025

Spatiotemporal visualization of current-induced spin switching in the antiferromagnetic Weyl semimetal Mn₃Sn

A research team, led by Ryo Shimano of the University of Tokyo, has explored ultrafast spin dynamics in the antiferromagnetic Weyl semimetal Mn₃Sn, providing direct visualization of current-induced switching processes at the sub-nanosecond scale. Mn₃Sn is of particular interest for spintronic applications due to its non-collinear spin structure, which gives rise to distinct magnetic and electrical properties at room temperature.

Using spatiotemporally resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect imaging with electrical pulses as short as 140 picoseconds, the team captured the evolution of magnetic domains during switching in polycrystalline Mn₃Sn films. The measurements revealed two distinct regimes of magnetization reversal depending on the intensity and duration of the applied current pulse: a non-thermal process where switching occurs without disrupting the antiferromagnetic order, and a thermally assisted process involving transient heating beyond the magnetic ordering temperature.

Read the full story Posted: Dec 05,2025

Researchers report 'twisted metallic magnet' for next‑generation spintronics and electronics

Researchers from The University of Tokyo, RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS), Tokyo Metropolitan University, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Gdańsk University of Technology, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, and additional institutes recently reported a metallic “twisted” antiferromagnet that realizes p‑wave magnetism and delivers a strong, easily readable spintronic signal. This material links a helical spin texture directly to charge transport, pointing toward faster, cooler, and more compact spin‑based memory and logic technologies.

In this compound, atomic magnetic moments do not all align in one direction as in a standard magnet; instead, they form a helix along a crystal axis, creating an antiferromagnetic “twisted” state with nearly zero net magnetization. This helical texture produces an odd‑parity (p‑wave) spin splitting of the conduction electrons, so electrons moving in different directions carry oppositely polarized spins without relying on strong electronic correlations.

Read the full story Posted: Nov 29,2025

The Faraday effect’s hidden magnetic dimension

A recent study led by Dr. Amir Capua and Benjamin Assouline at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that the magnetic part of light plays a direct, previously overlooked role in the Faraday effect - challenging nearly 180 years of common perception in optics and magnetism.​​

The Faraday effect is a classic phenomenon where the polarization of light rotates as it passes through a material in the presence of a static magnetic field. Historically, this rotation was explained almost entirely by the electric field of light interacting with charges in the material, while the magnetic field of light was thought negligible at optical frequencies. This new research demonstrates that the oscillating magnetic field of light itself exerts a torque on atomic spins in the material and contributes meaningfully to the rotation observed.​​

Read the full story Posted: Nov 23,2025

Researchers develop a digital spintronic compute-in-memory macro for energy-efficient artificial intelligence processing

Researchers from at Southern University of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University and other institutes recently reported a spintronic compute-in-memory (CIM) macro designed to improve computational efficiency in artificial intelligence hardware. The device is a 64-kb non-volatile digital CIM macro fabricated using 40-nm spin-transfer torque magnetic random-access memory (STT-MRAM) technology, which stores information through the magnetic orientation of nanometer-scale layers.

Conventional computing architectures separate memory and processing units, requiring frequent data transfer that increases latency and energy consumption. CIM designs address this limitation by integrating storage and computation, though most prior implementations have relied on analog operations that constrain accuracy, scalability, and robustness. The newly developed digital CIM architecture addresses these limitations by combining the endurance and non-volatility of STT-MRAM with digitally controlled computation.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 30,2025

Graphene-based approach achieves robust and efficient spin-charge interconversion

Researchers from the Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2), CSIC and BIST have reported a theoretical framework and numerical confirmation for fully efficient spin-charge interconversion in graphene. Efficient conversion of charge current into spin current is a central objective in spintronics, and the intrinsic properties of graphene make it an attractive platform to explore this phenomenon.

Joaquín Medina Dueñas, Santiago Giménez de Castro, Jose H. Garcia, and Stephan Roche from ICN2 demonstrate that a complete conversion can be achieved by controlling the coupling between spin and pseudospin degrees of freedom. The study shows that a combined spin-pseudospin operator remains conserved in graphene, enabling fully efficient spin-charge conversion through the Rashba-Edelstein effect. The results also reveal the presence of a spin Hall effect that is resilient to disorder, indicating a stable mechanism for spin transport in realistic graphene systems.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 28,2025

New method could enable more energy-efficient memory devices

An international research team that included researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Kyushu University and DGIST has developed a new fabrication method for energy-efficient magnetic random-access memory (MRAM). The new method relies on a material called thulium iron garnet (TmIG) which has been attracting global attention for its ability to enable high-speed, low-power information rewriting at room temperature. 

The team hopes these new findings will lead to significant improvements in the speed and power efficiency of high-computing hardware, such as those used to power generative AI.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 11,2025

AI framework accelerates discovery of antiferromagnets for next‑gen spintronics

Researchers from China's Hangzhou Dianzi University have developed an artificial intelligence-driven framework that could accelerate the discovery of antiferromagnetic materials for spintronics. Antiferromagnets (AFMs) are prized in advanced electronics because their alternating spin orientations cancel stray magnetic fields, creating fast, stable, and densely packable devices. However, their complex magnetic interactions and vast chemical possibilities have made systematic design extremely challenging.

The team’s approach combines a crystal diffusion variational autoencoder with data augmentation (CDVAE-DA), crystal graph convolutional neural networks (CGCNNs), a genetic algorithm (GA), and density functional theory (DFT) validation into a single, integrated pipeline. CDVAE-DA learns from tens of thousands of known crystal structures and then fine tunes its predictions on an AFM-specific dataset, producing novel, chemically valid candidates with over 90% composition accuracy. These structures are rapidly screened by CGCNN models, which assess three key properties: formation energy, total magnetic moment, and electronic band gap. Candidates meeting AFM-friendly criteria—stable energy, low net magnetization, and a targeted band gap range—are passed to the optimization stage.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 06,2025

Controlling light-induced magnetization boundaries for next-generation spintronic devices

Researchers from CNRS, Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy, and the Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth have demonstrated that all-optical helicity-independent magnetization switching (AO-HIS) in spintronic materials is a spatially inhomogeneous process along the depth of nanometer-thin magnetic films, challenging the traditional view of uniform, local switching. 

Using femtosecond soft X-ray spectroscopy on a 9.4 nm-thick Gd25Co75 alloy film within a layered heterostructure, they observed an ultrafast formation and downward propagation of a magnetization boundary at about 2,000 m/s, sweeping through the magnetic layer in roughly 4.5 ps.

Read the full story Posted: Sep 24,2025