British University Announces First Submicron Magnetic Logic Device

摘要

Physicists at the University of Durham (Durham, UK) have fabricated a magnetic NOT gate that can operate at room temperature. It is the first wholly magnetic logic device to be formed on a microchip, and offers a key to what could become a completely new micro- and nano-magnetic chip technology. The Durham NOT gate consists of a track of a naturally ferromagnetic alloy shaped like an inverted "Y." The magnetism of this ferromagnetic alloy tends to run parallel to its track length and points in one of two opposite directions. A single ferromagnetic track can contain different regions, each magnetized in one of these two directions. Where these opposite magnetizations meet, a transition region or "domain wall" is formed in which the magnetization direction is gradually rotated across the thickness of the domain wall. Domain walls can be moved along magnetic tracks by applying an external magnetic field. These two different magnetization directions can be used to code for binary logic states of 0 and 1 for storing a binary digit.