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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the something-to-remember dept.

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have made another important breakthrough in the field of future magnetic storage devices. Already in March 2016, the international team investigated structures, which could serve as magnetic shift register or racetrack memory devices. This type of storage promises low access times, high information density, and low energy consumption. Now, the research team achieved the billion-fold reproducible motion of special magnetic textures, so-called skyrmions, between different positions, which is exactly the process needed in magnetic shift registers thereby taking a critical step towards the application of skyrmions in devices. The work was published in the research journal Nature Physics.

The experiments were carried out in specially designed thin film structures, i.e., vertically asymmetric multilayer devices exhibiting broken inversion symmetry and thus stabilizing special spin structures called skyrmions. Those structures are similar to a hair whorl and like these are relatively difficult to destroy. This grants them unique stability, which is another argument for the application of skyrmions in such spintronic devices.

Since skyrmions can be shifted by electrical currents and feel a repulsive force from the edges of the magnetic track as well as from single defects in the wire, they can move relatively undisturbed through the track. This is a highly desired property for racetrack devices, which are supposed to consist of static read- and write-heads, while the magnetic bits are shifted in the track. However, it is another important aspect of skyrmion dynamics that the skyrmions do not only move parallel to the applied current, but also perpendicular to it. This leads to an angle between the skyrmion direction of motion and the current flow called the skyrmion Hall angle, which can be predicted theoretically. As a result, the skyrmions should move under this constant angle until they start getting repelled by the edge of the material and then keep a constant distance to it.

Journal Reference:
Kai Litzius, et al. Skyrmion Hall effect revealed by direct time-resolved X-ray microscopy. Nature Physics, 2016; DOI: 10.1038/nphys4000


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:15PM (#449072)

    Nuf said.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:27PM (#449079)

    Nuf said? C'mon now, a basic search for the word would have helped you out.

    A little magnetic tornado is basically what they're talking about. Rotating systems tend to be stable, and I guess they tried to portray that through a common example of a rotated system that is hard to change (hair whorls, cowlicks, whatever you wanna call them). Not the best example, but here's a visual for you:

    hair whorl [duckduckgo.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:07AM (#449151)

      I'd mod you up if I weren't an AC, for bringing back the cowlick reference from yesterday! Booya!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @09:59PM (#449090)

    What's "nuf", yo? I left my dictionary at work.