New Publication!- R. Iraei, N. Kani, S. Dutta, D. E. Nikonov, S. Manipatruni, I. A. Young, J. T. Heron, and A. Naeemi, Clocked Magnetostriction-Assisted Spintronic Device Design and Simulation, IEEE Trans. Electronic Devices 65, 5(2017).

Abstract: We propose a heterostructure device comprised of magnets and piezoelectrics, which significantly improves the delay and the energy dissipation of an all-spin logic (ASL) device. This paper studies and models the physics of the device, illustrates its operation, and benchmarks its performance using SPICE simulations. We show that the proposed device maintains low-voltage operation, nonreciprocity, nonvolatility, cascadability, and thermal reliability of the original ASL device. Moreover, by utilizing the deterministic switching of a magnet from the saddle point of the energy profile, the device is more efficient in terms of energy and delay and is robust to thermal fluctuations. The results of simulations show that compared to ASL devices, the proposed device achieves 21x shorter delay and 27x lower energy dissipation per bit for a 32-bit arithmetic-logic unit.

Full text available from IEEE Transactions on Electronic Devices.

Peter will be working in the Ferroelectronics Lab over the summer as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering Program (SURE). SURE offers summer research internships to outstanding undergraduate students who have completed their sophomore or junior year. The progam funds the undergraduate student for 10-12 weeks of full-time research. Peter will be working to synthesize ordered antiferromagnetic Tb₂Ir₂O₇ thin films for use in magnetotransport studies.

Steve and Nguyen both received Rackham Graduate Student Research grants for $3,000 each. Steve’s grant will go towards buying a new magnetron sputtering assembly for the lab and Nguyen’s grant was for the purchase of a high voltage amplifier unit for electronic measurements. Congratulations to both of them.

This past week, Steve gave a contributed talk on theoretical calculations of strain dependent spin orbit splitting in PtMn₃ and its effect on intrinsic transport properties.

Abstract: Efficient charge-to-spin current conversion in materials is crucial to the development of spintronic memory or logic devices. A promising and established method of spin current generation is the injection of charge current through a crystal with a strong intrinsic spin Hall conductivity. Recently, a class of antiferromagnets with the composition XMn₃, where X={Pt, Ir, Rh}, have been identified as materials with large intrinsic spin Hall conductivities stemming from their non-trivial spin order. The exact role of antiferromagnetic spin texture on the generated spin current, however, is not fully understood. Temperature-dependent triangular AFM – collinear AFM phase transitions in chemically ordered PtMn₃ can be exploited to probe this directly. Here, we report on the growth and magneto-transport measurement of ordered PtMn3 thin films. Harmonic transport measurement techniques utilizing spin-transfer torques were performed to determine the spin and anomalous Hall conductivities at select temperatures.

Some of Peter’s artwork submitted to the annual calendar competition was chosen to hang in the hallway of the HH Dow building, home of the UM MSE department. If you are walking through, check it out!