Recent Spintronic News - Page 2

Researchers from EPFL, Max Planck Institute and HZB have shown that spin chirality can be engineered purely by 3D shape in an otherwise non‑chiral ferromagnet, unlocking spontaneous MChA at room temperature and zero applied field.

The device is a hollow “Archimedean screw”: a 3D‑printed polymer tube made by two‑photon lithography and conformally coated with a ~30 nm polycrystalline Ni layer by ALD, forming a twisted nanotube whose left‑ or right‑handed geometry imprints the magnetic twist. The curved, twisted shape creates a helical magnetization pattern with a built‑in magnetic “circulation”, which breaks symmetry between +k and −k spin waves without needing exotic chiral crystals or external magnetic fields.

Researchers from RWTH Aachen University, Ioffe Institute and Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH have shown that the collective motion of spin-polarized electrons can spontaneously generate ultrafast electric currents - without any applied voltage.

In their experiments on strained n-InGaAs semiconductor layers, the team found that when electrons are initialized in the same spin state and exposed to a magnetic field, they produce an alternating current (AC) at gigahertz frequencies. This current persists until the coherent spin precession of the electrons dephases. Its amplitude scales linearly with both the strength of the spin–orbit interaction and the magnetic field, revealing a direct link between spin dynamics and charge motion in solid-state systems.

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.

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.

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.

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.​​

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.

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.

Here are some recent and popular spintronics industry and research news that you may find of interest:

• AI framework accelerates discovery of antiferromagnets for next‑gen spintronics
• Wrinkles in 2D materials could enable efficient spintronic devices
• Breakthrough method uncovers hidden magnetic signals in non-magnetic metals
• Novel way to manipulate skyrmions will enable better memory and sensing devices
• Researchers observe spin currents in graphene without magnetic fields
• Researchers observe a new form of magnetism
• Cholesterol-based metal–organic supramolecular materials could boost spintronic devices
• Researchers show that light can interact with single-atom layers
• New antiferromagnetic spintronics project receives funding of nearly $4 million
• TDK announces the world's first "Spin Photo Detector" with 10X data transmission speeds
• New EU-funded project applies spintronics to the field of artificial intelligence
• Intel unveils a highly promising MESO spintronics device architecture
• Researchers use perovskite materials and light to control electron spins

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.