Recent Spintronic News - Page 2

Researchers from the University of Tokyo, RIKEN and Tokyo Metropolitan University have demonstrated an ultrafast, energy-efficient nonvolatile switching device based on antiferromagnetic Mn₃Sn, achieving reliable operation in the picosecond regime with dramatically reduced power consumption.

The device is built on Mn₃Sn/tantalum heterostructures and utilizes spin–orbit torque (SOT) to switch the magnetic state using electrical pulses as short as 40 picoseconds. This represents a roughly 1,000× speed improvement over conventional nanosecond-scale switching, which has long been a practical limit in current CPU and GPU technologies due to rapidly increasing energy demands at higher speeds.

Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Weizmann Institute of Science recently demonstrated that the direction of a magnetic field can influence the isotopic fractionation of a chiral biomolecule, establishing a clear experimental link between electron spin, molecular chirality, and isotope-dependent behavior on magnetized surfaces.

The study focuses on L-methionine, a chiral amino acid, and examines how molecules containing different carbon isotopes - ¹²C and ¹³C - interact with magnetized surfaces. While isotopic fractionation is widely used to trace biochemical pathways, the mechanisms governing isotope selectivity in chiral systems have remained poorly understood.

A team of researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, and additional collaborators in Berlin, Dresden, Jülich, and Eindhoven have experimentally demonstrated and coherently controlled the transfer of angular momentum between lattice vibrations, providing the first direct observation of how this conserved quantity propagates through a crystal lattice.

In solids, the exchange of energy and linear momentum between phonons via anharmonic coupling is well established. However, tracking angular momentum transfer between lattice modes has remained elusive, despite its central role in magnetization dynamics and spin relaxation phenomena such as the Einstein–de Haas effect. The present work closes this gap by directly resolving how quantized crystal angular momentum is redistributed between coupled vibrational modes.

University of Manchester researchers have shown that electrons in ultra-clean graphene can be steered with high precision while keeping their spin information intact, a key requirement for future low power electronics and quantum devices.

The team demonstrates how electrons can travel ballistically, i.e. without experiencing any scattering or resistance, over micrometer distances in graphene at low temperature and maintain spin coherence all the way up to room temperature. By using a technique known as transverse magnetic focusing (TMF), they were able to bend electron trajectories like light rays traversing a lens and show that these curved paths carry a clear spin signature.

An international research team led by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has developed a new magnetic material that combines a robust internal magnetic structure with an almost vanishing external magnetic field, and it maintains these properties well above room temperature. 

The material is the molecular framework Cr(pyrazine)₃, a three-dimensional cubic ReO₃‑type structure in which Cr³⁺ ions are bridged exclusively by pyrazine radical anions. In this architecture, the chromium centers and the pyrazine radicals form two magnetic sublattices whose moments are strongly antiferromagnetically coupled, giving rise to a nearly perfectly compensated ferrimagnetic ground state with an exceptionally small net magnetic moment.

Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science, Kyoto Institute of Technology, University of Tsukuba and National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) have developed an interpretable machine-learning framework that automatically detects anomalies in Fermi surface maps of the spintronic Heusler alloy Co₂MnGaₓGe₁₋ₓ (CMGG). The approach uses principal component analysis (PCA) on simulated Fermi-surface images to pinpoint compositions where the electronic structure changes sharply, and links these anomalies directly to nodal-line formation and variations in spin polarization.

In this work, the team focuses on CMGG, a Heusler alloy with half-metallicity, nodal-line features and high spin polarization, known for its anomalous Nernst effect arising from nodal lines on the Fermi surface. Using density functional theory (DFT), they first generate a composition-dependent band-structure dataset and extract kₓ–kᵧ Fermi-surface cuts through the Γ point. These images are blurred to roughly approximate ARPES data, then converted into one-dimensional vectors and analyzed via PCA to obtain a low-dimensional representation where each point corresponds to a specific Ga content x.

Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Southern California, RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Ariel University, California Institute of Technology, Uppsala University and the Weizmann Institute have reported a spin-dependent mechanism that may resolve one of the longest-standing questions in science: not only how homochirality emerged, but why a specific handedness was selected.

For more than 150 years, scientists have sought to understand why biological systems exclusively use one enantiomeric form - D-type for RNA and specific handedness for amino acids - despite the near-identical chemical properties of mirror-image molecules. Previous work established that homochirality could arise via enantioselective interactions with magnetic substrates, such as magnetite, through the chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect. However, this framework did not explain why one enantiomer is ultimately favored over the other.

Researchers from Freie Universität Berlin, Uppsala University and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB) have directly tracked how magnetic order in a coupled Fe/CoO bilayer collapses within a few hundred femtoseconds after an ultrashort laser pulse, and identified interfacial energy transfer from Fe to CoO as the key channel for quenching the antiferromagnetic order.

The sample consists of an epitaxial 9 (±0.5) monolayer CoO film on Ag(001), capped by 9 (±1) monolayers of Fe. The CoO antiferromagnetic moments are collinear in the film plane and aligned with the Fe magnetization along an Fe ⟨100⟩ easy axis due to strong interfacial coupling; an external magnetic field can rotate this AFM spin axis by 90° in the plane via the Fe layer. Time-resolved measurements were carried out at BESSY II using 60 fs p‑polarized pump pulses at 800 or 400 nm and 100 fs polarized soft x‑ray probe pulses, providing 120 fs temporal resolution in a pump–probe reflection geometry under ultrahigh vacuum at 200 K and a 120 mT in‑plane field.

Researchers from Nankai University, South China Normal University and additional institutes have introduced a new approach to precisely and rapidly switch the helicity of magnetic vortices.

Their novel method involves the use of extremely short laser pulses and a magnetic field applied perpendicular to the surface of a nano-engineered material. As part of their study, the researchers first engineered tiny magnetic vortices in a magnetic material made up of 80% of nickel (Ni) and 20% iron (Fe). This magnetic alloy is promising for the development of spintronics as it possesses advantageous magnetic properties.

Everspin Technologies has announced a strategic manufacturing agreement with Microchip Technology to expand on-shore production of its MRAM and tunnel magnetoresistive (TMR) sensor products. The initial 10-year deal, which can be extended in two-year increments, will see Everspin establish a copy exact (plus) MRAM line at a Microchip semiconductor fabrication facility in Oregon, mirroring its existing line in Chandler, Arizona.

Under the agreement, Everspin will transfer its magnetic technology and MRAM manufacturing process into Microchip’s Oregon fab while retaining ownership of its spintronic IP and process know-how, using Microchip’s foundry capacity to scale output. This added line is designed to increase wafer capacity for MRAM and TMR devices, provide a fully on-shore second source, and support long-term supply continuity for spintronics-based non-volatile memory and sensor products well into the next decade.