NSF Award
9961165
This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop subnanosecond switching spin dependent tunneling (SDT) devices by combining high speed magnetic thin films and low-capacitance SDT structures. SDT devices have high signal, low switching field, and high resistance, which lead to high sensitivity, low power consumption, and small size and weight, when compared with giant magnetoresistive (GMR) materials. While the switching speed of SDT devices is limited to longer than severalnanoseconds, the speed of fast electronics has gone into the deep sub-nanosecond regime in the past several years. In order to make fast SDT devices, the magnetic material used in the devices has to be significantly reduced, and existing attractive static properties have to be maintained. Phase I will address both film switching and SDT structure/design issues. By incorporating high-speed magnetic films into the new SDT structures with fast electrical characteristics, the result is expected to be integrated SDT devices with state-of-the-art static properties, but with switching speeds of much less than 1 nanosecond.<br/><br/>There are several commercial applications for this technology in high-speed magnetic field and current sensing devices, high-speed/low-power isolaters, fast magnetic random access memories (MRAM), next generation read heads, as well as gigahertz inductor/transformer applications.
