Spintronics with chiral magnets

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The pioneering research of Nobel Laureates Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg heralded a new age of electronics where information can be stored and processed using the spin of the electron. This new class of electronics, called spintronics, facilitated dramatic improvements in computer hard drive storage densities. This revolution in the way we think about electronics promises to address the ever-increasing need for low-power, high-speed electronics. However, new materials are required to meet this challenge. I plan to create new materials that are compatible with silicon and germanium, which are the two semiconductors upon which modern electronic are based. While hard drives continue to remain indispensable, they are much slower than electronic memories and susceptible to mechanical failure. One of the visions of spintronics is to move the magnetic materials that store information on the hard drive directly into the computer where information would be accessed without any moving parts. A new approach to this problem is to create magnetic memories from chiral magnetic thin films. We will explore the development of our discovery of a new kind of magnetic memory where information can be stored in the number of twists in the magnetic structure. We will also investigate ways of storing information in the novel magnetic knots that have recently been discovered in these materials. We will develop new chiral magnetic materials to realize this vision. A large number of chiral magnets can be formed by the reaction of magnetic metals with silicon or germanium with a broad spectrum of magnetic properties, which provides great versatility in material design. These nano-scale thin films will be grown on technologically relevant semiconductors such that they can be interfaced with modern electronics and electrical currents can be used to read and write information stored in the twists and knots in their magnetic structure.