Morgan Williamson, UT-Austin

"Spintronics with ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic materials"

Abstract: Spintronics, or spin electronics, refers to the study of the role played by electron spin in solid state physics, and aims at developing a new class of devices which exploit spin instead of, or in addition to, the electron charge. Spintronic devices exploit magnetic moments to encode and transfer information. For example, nanomagnetic assemblies are used in commercially available magnetic random access memory (MRAM) which offers the advantage of nonvolatility while preserving DRAM data transfer frequencies. Recent efforts on the voltage control of MRAM permit a lower power consumption by taking advantage of voltage controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA). Moreover, device integration of a new class of materials which are antiferromagnetic (AFM) is expected to further increase data transfer frequencies, scalability, and robustness to external magnetic fields. In this talk I will discuss the quantification of VCMA in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) using ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) and speak on a reversible resistive switching induced by an electric bias found in the AFM transition metal oxide Sr3Ir2O7.