Integration of spintronic interface for nanomagnetic arrays

An experimental demonstration utilizing a spintronic input/output (I/O) interface for arrays of closely spaced nanomagnets is presented. The free layers of magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) form dipole coupled nanomagnet arrays which can be applied to different contexts including Magnetic Quantum Cellular Automata (MQCA) for logic applications and self-biased devices for field sensing applications. Dipole coupled nanomagnet arrays demonstrate adaptability to a variety of contexts due to the ability for tuning of magnetic response. Spintronics allows individual nanomagnets to be manipulated with spin transfer torque and monitored with magnetoresistance. This facilitates measurement of the magnetic coupling which is important for (yet to be demonstrated) data propagation reliability studies. In addition, the same magnetic coupling can be tuned to reduce coercivity for field sensing. Dipole coupled nanomagnet arrays have the potential to be thousands of times more energy efficient than CMOS technology for logic applications, and they also have the potential to form multi-axis field sensors. Copyright 2011 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [doi:10.1063/1.3672177]