Spintronics with chiral magnets

诺贝尔奖得主阿尔伯特·费特和彼得·格伦伯格的开创性研究预示着一个新的电子时代的到来，信息可以利用电子的自旋来存储和处理。这种被称为自旋电子学的新型电子学极大地提高了计算机硬盘的存储密度。我们对电子产品的思考方式的这场革命有望解决对低功耗、高速电子产品不断增长的需求。然而，需要新的材料来应对这一挑战。我计划创造与硅和锗兼容的新材料，这两种半导体是现代电子的基础。虽然硬盘驱动器仍然是不可或缺的，但它们比电子存储器慢得多，而且容易发生机械故障。自旋电子学的愿景之一是将存储硬盘上信息的磁性材料直接移动到计算机中，这样信息就可以在没有任何移动部件的情况下访问。解决这一问题的一种新方法是利用手性磁性薄膜制造磁记忆。我们将探索我们发现的一种新型磁存储器的发展，其中信息可以存储在磁结构的扭曲数量中。我们还将研究在这些材料中最近发现的新型磁结中存储信息的方法。我们将开发新的手性磁性材料来实现这一愿景。磁性金属与硅或锗反应可形成大量的手性磁体，具有广谱的磁性能，为材料设计提供了很大的通用性。这些纳米级薄膜将在技术相关的半导体上生长，这样它们就可以与现代电子设备和电流相连接，用于读取和写入存储在其磁性结构中的扭曲和结中的信息。

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.