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Spin logic operations based on magnetization switching by asymmetric spin current

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Abstract

Spintronic devices based on spin orbit torques (SOT) exhibit advantages in low power consumption, high speed, reconfigurability, and high endurance, which offers the prospect of in-memory computing based on spin logic devices. By designing a local spin current gradient, the magnetization can be switched deterministically by asymmetric spin currents without external magnetic field using micromagnetic simulations, where an additional out of plane effective field can be generated by the spin gradient. Through capping half of the Pt/Co/Pt SOT devices with Pt strip, we demonstrate the field-free deterministic current-induced magnetization switching experimentally. Finally, we design AND, NAND, OR, and NOR Boolean logic gates based on these devices, which could be used as building blocks for programmable and stateful logic operations.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Beijing Natural Science Foundation Key Program (Grant No. Z190007), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61774144, 12004376), Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS (Grant No. QYZDY-SSW-JSC020), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. XDB28000000, XDB44000000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Superlattices and Microstructures, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100083, China

    Yucai Li, Nan Zhang & Kaiyou Wang

  2. College of Materials Science and Opto-Electronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yucai Li, Nan Zhang & Kaiyou Wang

  3. Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, Beijing, 100193, China

    Kaiyou Wang

Authors
  1. Yucai Li
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  2. Nan Zhang
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  3. Kaiyou Wang
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Correspondence to Kaiyou Wang.

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Appendixes A and B. The supporting information is available online at info.scichina.com and link.springer.com. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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Li, Y., Zhang, N. & Wang, K. Spin logic operations based on magnetization switching by asymmetric spin current. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 65, 122404 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-020-3246-8

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