The magic of magnetism: a new technology promises a revolution in computer technology

Magnetic materials and microscopic antennas will transmit information and energy without wires from one point to another with minimal loss.

Researchers from Austria and Germany invented an innovative method of creating more compact and energy-efficient computing devices using magnon circuits. An article about this technology appeared in the journal Science Advances.

The central processing units (CPUs) in our laptops, desktops and phones use billions of transistors made using complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Over time, manufacturers strive to reduce the equipment more and more, making it more compact, and more and more physical limitations appear in their way, as well as questions about durability. In addition, the high energy consumption of electronics forces us to look for alternative computing architectures. One of the promising candidates is magnons — quanta of spin waves.

“Imagine a calm lake. If we let a stone fall into the water, the resulting waves will propagate from the point of origin. Now we will replace the lake with magnetic material and the stone with an antenna. The propagating waves are called spin waves and can be used to transmit energy and information from one point to another with minimal losses,” — explained Sabri Koraltan from the University of Vienna, the first author of the study.

Once discovered, spin waves can be used in magnon devices to perform classical and unconventional computing tasks. But to reduce the “footprint” of magnon devices, scientists need to use spin waves with short wavelengths, which are difficult to generate with current nanoantennas due to limited efficiency. Such microscopic antennas can be manufactured only in sterile rooms at special enterprises using advanced lithography methods.

A group of scientists from Austria and Germany took a big step forward by proposing a simpler solution: electric current flows directly through a magnetic grid with twisted magnetic patterns. As the study showed, the efficiency of the emission of spin waves in this way is several times higher than traditional methods.

According to the scientists, with the help of the high-resolution X-ray microscope “Maxymus” installed at the BESSY II electron synchrotron in Berlin, they observed the predicted spin waves at nanoscale wavelengths and gigahertz frequencies.

“Furthermore, by using special materials that can change their magnetization during deformation, we demonstrated that the direction of these spin waves can be dynamically controlled simply by adjusting the magnitude of the applied current. This can be seen as an important step towards active magnon devices,” — noted Sabri Koraltan.

The ability to redirect spin waves on demand opens up new possibilities for creating reprogrammable magnon circuits, which could lead to more adaptive and energy-efficient computing systems.