The present disclosure belongs to a technical field of storing and processing of information data, and provides a method for controlling magnetic multi-domain state of a magnetic film in a nonvolatile magnetic memory or spin logic device.
With development of information society, there is provided a higher requirement of storing and processing of information. A traditional information storage and process based on semiconductor industry approaches its physical limitation in terms of storage density and computing speed, so it becomes urgent to develop a new storage technology and information processing technology. Magnetic storage technology and spin-logic devices are paid much more attentions to due to their low power consumption and high operation speed.
In order to pursue a higher storage density, magnetic materials with strong perpendicular anisotropy and a large coercive force is widely used to a magnetic memory including a hard disk. However, a large perpendicular anisotropy and a large coercive force in turn lead to that it becomes difficult to write data based on a conventional magnetic head and a spin-transfer torque effect. Meanwhile, as another development direction of high density integration, multiple-valued storage and multi-valued logic calculation become very important. In the magnetic memory and spin-logic devices, since it is absent of a reliable means for magnetization operation, it is difficult for the multi-valued storage or the multi-valued logic operation which is based on the multi-domain magnetic state to be applied. Its main reason is that a process of forming magnetic domains in magnetic thin film is a random process, and the process of forming the magnetic domains is uncontrollable. Even under the same condition for forming the magnetic domains, such as introduction of defects, application of an external magnetic field or direct inletting of a large current or the like, it is difficult to get the same number of magnetic domains, the same volume of magnetic domains and the same position of the magnetic domain. From the view point of application, the magnetic film may be manufactured to be a microstructure having a characteristic dimension of several tens of nanometers to several tens of micrometers by utilizing micromaching. However, when defects are introduced to samples having a characteristic dimension of several tens of nanometers to several tens of micrometers, currents are inlet into the samples or an external magnetic field is applied to the samples, the multi-domain states are still not able to be controlled since the uncontrollability of the magnetic domain is generally considered to be caused by a basic physical mechanism for forming the magnetic domain itself. Due to the uncontrollability of the multi-domain state, there is not yet an effective means to regulate the multi-domain state.
Therefore, it is very import to find a method for reliably regulating magnetic multi-domain states to effectively control these magnetic multi-domain stages in the application field.
For the issues in which it is not easy to control magnetic multi-domain states in the magnetic storage or logic device and it is difficult to implement a write operation of storage in a high density, the present disclosure provides a method for regulating magnetic multi-domain state to achieve more precise control of the magnetic multi-domain state.
In order to achieve the above objective, the present disclosure provides a method for regulating magnetic multi-domain state, which comprises steps of: when a current is applied to a magnetic thin film, applying an external magnetic field having a magnetic field strength of 0 to 4×105 A/m to regulate magnetization state of the magnetic thin film; wherein the current is configured to drive movements of a magnetic domain of the magnetic multi-domain states in the magnetic thin film, and the external magnetic field is configured to regulate generation of new magnetic domain in the magnetic thin film and state of the magnetic domain during the movement, so that the magnetic thin film is in a stable magnetic multi-domain state.
In the above technical solution, the magnetic multi-domain state comprises at least two magnetic domains, and the regulating magnetic multi-domain state represents simultaneously regulating two or more magnetic domains.
In the above technical solution, the current applied in the magnetic thin film is applied to the magnetic thin film in a direction parallel to a surface of the magnetic thin film or in a direction perpendicular to the surface of the magnetic thin film.
In the above technical solution, when the current is applied in the direction parallel to the surface of the magnetic thin film, the magnetic thin film is attached to a thin film layer composed of any materials and does not require the same area as that of the thin film layer to which the magnetic thin film is attached. When the current is applied in the direction perpendicular to the surface of the magnetic thin film, the magnetic thin film is a free-reversion layer in a magnetic tunnel-junction configuration or a free-reversion layer in a spin-valve configuration; and in both of the free-reversion layers, the magnetic thin film layer which is pinned leads to that the current applied to the free-reversion layer is a spin-polarized current.
In the above technical solution, the external magnetic field is implemented by growing a ferromagnetic layer or placing a permanent magnetic around the magnetic thin film, or the external magnetic field is implemented through an oersted field generated by a current in a material adjacent to the magnetic thin film or a moved magnetic head in a conventional hard disk.
In the above technical solution, an inclination angle of the direction of the external magnetic field and the direction of the current is arbitrary in a spatial scale. When the direction of the external magnetic field direction is not perpendicular to the direction of the current direction, the multi-domain state is simultaneously regulated by a polarity of the current and the external magnetic field.
In the above technical solution, when a current density of the current applied to the magnetic thin film is less than 1×104 A/cm2, a certain hysteresis effect is happened for the external magnetic field and the regulating of the current; and when the current density is greater than 1×104 A/cm2, the hysteresis effect disappears to determine a definite multi-domain state.
In the above technical solution, the magnetic thin film is a single ferromagnetic material, a ferromagnetic alloy, or a super lattice structure constituted of multiple layers of ferromagnetic thin film.
In the above technical solution, when the state of the magnetic domain is controlled by the current, the magnetic domain is generated by the applied current or the magnetic domain is caused by an inherent defect of the magnetic thin film, or the magnetic domain is generated by a specific geometrical structure, or the magnetic domain is introduced by additionally applied external magnetic field.
In the above technical solution, if the magnetic domain is generated by a specific geometrical structure, the ferromagnetic layer is made to having a “T” shape to form the magnetic domain at a corner; a thickness of the ferromagnetic layer is increased at a position desired for the magnetic domain, or other ferromagnetic layer is plated at the position requiring the magnetic domain to form the magnetic domain at the position requiring the magnetic domain.
In the above technical solution, the method further comprises growing one layer of heavy metal at one side or at both sides of the regulated magnetic thin film to improve efficiency of regulating the magnetization state. The layer of heavy metal is one of Pt, Au, Ta, or W.
As can be seen from the above technical solution, the present disclosure has the following beneficial effects:
1. By utilizing the present disclosure, the magnetic multi-domain state or the magnetic single-domain state may be reliably regulated by a small external magnetic field and a current. Such a multi-domain state can't be affected by a higher or lower current and may be kept to be stable when the current is removed.
2. By utilizing the present disclosure, the multi-domain state will no longer change with increase of the current once the multi-domain state reaches a stable state, which avoids misoperation caused by fluctuating of the current in actual application.
3. By utilizing the present disclosure, the magnetic domain formed by the current or the inherent magnetic domain formed by the defect is driven by the current so that the magnetic domain is extended to the whole magnetic sample to implement a reversion of the magnetization strength, which solves the issue in which it is difficult for the writing operation in the storage with a high density.
4. By utilizing the present disclosure, it may be compatible with the current hard disk and magnetic random memory, which may improve the writing operation of the current magnetic storage, and may implement a multi-valued storage on the basis of the current memory to save cost.
5. By utilizing the present disclosure, it may compose a nonvolatile multi-valued magnetic dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which is better than the currently widely used DRAM in capacitance and speed.
6. By utilizing the present disclosure, it may compose a logic operator based on movements of the magnetic domain and may compose an operated magnetic domain in a Racetrack memory.
7. By utilizing the present disclosure, it may be used to control magnetization state of the current magnetic memory and spin-logic device in the future, so as to implement a nonvolatile multi-valued storage and a multi-bit logic operation.
In order to make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of the present disclosure be apparent, the present disclosure will be further illustrated in detail in conjunction with particular embodiments and with reference to the accompany figures.
A basic idea of the method for regulating magnetic multi-domain state according to the present disclosure is to utilize a spin-polarized current passing through a ferromagnetic layer to generate a magnetic domain or to drive the magnetic domain to move, and to regulate relative velocity of movement of the sidewalls of the magnetic domain at both sides by regulating direction and size of an external magnetic field and the polarity of the current. During the movement, the magnetic domain is expanded or compressed to control the multi-domain states in the whole magnetic thin film to precisely control the magnetic multi-domain state. The present disclosure not only solves uncontrollability of magnetization strength in magnetic multi-valued storage and multi-bit logic operation, but also provides an effective means for writing operation in the current magnetic memory.
On the basis of the basic idea as mentioned above, the present disclosure provides a method for regulating magnetic multi-domain state, which comprises steps of: when a current is applied to a magnetic thin film, applying an external magnetic field having a magnetic field strength of 0 to 4×105 A/m to regulate magnetization state of the magnetic thin film; wherein the current is configured to drive movements of a magnetic domain in the magnetic thin film, and the external magnetic field is configured to regulate generation of the magnetic domain in the magnetic thin film and state of the magnetic domain during the movement, so that the magnetic thin film is in a stable magnetic multi-domain state. The magnetic thin film may be a single ferromagnetic material, a ferromagnetic alloy, or a super lattice structure constituted of multiple layers of ferromagnetic thin film.
As shown in
Among others, the current applied in the magnetic thin film is applied to the magnetic thin film in a direction parallel to a surface of the magnetic thin film or in a direction perpendicular to the surface of the magnetic thin film. When the current is applied in the direction parallel to the surface of the magnetic thin film, the magnetic thin film is attached to a thin film layer composed of any materials and does not require the same area as that of the thin film layer to which the magnetic thin film is attached. When the current is applied in the direction perpendicular to the surface of the magnetic thin film, the magnetic thin film is a free-reversion layer in a magnetic tunnel-junction configuration or a free-reversion layer in a spin-valve configuration; and in both of the free-reversion layers, the magnetic thin film layer which is pinned leads to that the current applied to the free-reversion layer is a spin-polarized current.
The external magnetic field is implemented by growing a ferromagnetic layer or placing a permanent magnetic around the magnetic thin film, or the external magnetic field is implemented through an oersted field generated by a current in a material adjacent to the magnetic thin film or a moved magnetic head in a conventional hard disk. An inclination angle of the direction of the external magnetic field and the direction of the current is arbitrary in a spatial scale. When the direction of the external magnetic field direction is not perpendicular to the direction of the current direction, the multi-domain state is simultaneously regulated by a polarity of the current and the external magnetic field.
Furthermore, when a current density of the current applied to the magnetic thin film is less than 1×104 A/cm2, a certain hysteresis effect is happened for the external magnetic field and the regulating of the current; and when the current density is greater than 1×104 A/cm2, the hysteresis effect disappears to determine a definite multi-domain state.
When the state of the magnetic domain is controlled by the current, the magnetic domain is generated by the applied current or the magnetic domain is caused by an inherent defect of the magnetic thin film, or the magnetic domain is generated by a specific geometrical structure, or the magnetic domain is introduced by additionally applied external magnetic field. If the magnetic domain is generated by a specific geometrical structure, the ferromagnetic layer is made to having a “T” shape to form the magnetic domain at a corner; a thickness of the ferromagnetic layer is increased at a position desired for the magnetic domain, or other ferromagnetic layer is plated at the position requiring the magnetic domain to form the magnetic domain at the position requiring the magnetic domain.
The method for regulating magnetic multi-domain state according to the present disclosure further comprises growing one layer of heavy metal at one side or at both sides of the regulated magnetic thin film to improve efficiency of regulating the magnetization state. The heavy metal is one of Pt, Au, Ta, or W.
In
In practice, the current can be supplied through a peripheral power supply circuit. The external magnetic field may be implemented by an Oster field in the neighboring wires, or may be implemented by placing a small permanent magnet at the whole sample or growing a layer of thin film of the permanent magnet at a specific position.
The regulating result of the present disclosure will be approved by taking a Co/Ni/Co sample and a super-thin Co sample an example. The present disclosure manufactures a sample of Pt 1.5/Co 0.3/Ni 0.6/Co 0.3/Pt 1.5 (nm) and a sample of Pt 2.5/Co 0.6/AlOx 1.5 (nm) by magnetron sputtering and configures the manufactured samples into a structure for hall measurement with a width of 2.5 micrometer by means of micromaching.
The inset of
It is firstly confirmed by
As can be seen from the above experiment results, such a means for regulating the multi-domain state is reliable and stable and will not be affected by fluctuation of the current. Such a means may be applied to construct a nonvolatile multi-states magnetic random memory, dynamic random memory, multi-states logic operator and so on, and may be applied to write data information in a high density disk.
The particular embodiments as mentioned above further illustrate the objectives, technical solutions and advantages of the present disclosure. It should be understood that the above description is only the specific embodiment of the present disclosure but is not to limit the disclosure. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions and improvements should be included within the scope of the present disclosure within spirit and principle of the present disclosure.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2014/073289 | 3/12/2014 | WO | 00 |