Design of Adiabatic MTJ-CMOS Hybrid Circuits

Low-power designs are a necessity with the increasing demand of portable devices which are battery operated. In many of such devices the operational speed is not as important as battery life. Logic-in-memory structures using nano-devices and adiabatic designs are two methods to reduce the static and dynamic power consumption respectively. Magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) is an emerging technology which has many advantages when used in logic-in-memory structures in conjunction with CMOS. In this paper, we introduce a novel adiabatic hybrid MTJ/CMOS structure which is used to design AND/NAND, XOR/XNOR and 1-bit full adder circuits. We simulate the designs using HSPICE with 32nm CMOS technology and compared it with a non-adiabatic hybrid MTJ/CMOS circuits. The proposed adiabatic MTJ/CMOS full adder design has more than 7 times lower power consumtion compared to the previous MTJ/CMOS full adder

Two-Dimensional Spintronic Circuit Architectures on Large Scale Graphene

Solid-state electronics based on utilizing the electron spin degree of freedom for storing and processing information can pave the way for next-generation spin-based computing. However, the realization of spin communication between multiple devices in complex spin circuit geometries, essential for practical applications, is still lacking. Here, we demonstrate the spin current propagation in two-dimensional (2D) circuit architectures consisting of multiple devices and configurations using a large area CVD graphene on SiO2/Si substrate at room temperature. Taking advantage of the significant spin transport distance reaching 34 {\mu}m in commercially available wafer-scale graphene grown on Cu foil, we demonstrate that the spin current can be effectively communicated between the magnetic memory elements in graphene channels within 2D circuits of Y-junction and Hexa-arm architectures. We further show that by designing graphene channels and ferromagnetic elements at different geometrical angles, the symmetric and antisymmetric components of the Hanle spin precession signal can be remarkably controlled. These findings lay the foundation for the design of complex 2D spintronic circuits, which can be integrated into efficient electronics based on the transport of pure spin currents

Control of the switching behavior of ferromagnetic nanowires using magnetostatic interactions

Magnetostatic interactions between two end-to-end Permalloy (Ni80Fe20) nanowires have been studied as a function of their separation, end shape, and width. The change in switching field increases as the wires become closer, with deviations from the switching field of an isolated wire of up to 40% observed. The sign of the change depends on the relative magnetization orientation of the two wires, with higher fields for parallel magnetization and lower fields for antiparallel magnetization. A wire end shape has a strong influence, with larger field variations being seen for flat-ended wires than wires with tapered ends. The micromagnetic modeling and experiments performed here were in good qualitative agreement. The experimental control of switching behavior of one nanowire with another was also demonstrated using magnetostatic interactions

Spin polarized transport driven by square voltage pulses in a quantum dot system

We calculate current, spin current and tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) for a quantum dot coupled to ferromagnetic leads in the presence of a square wave of bias voltage. Our results are obtained via time-dependent nonequilibrium Green function. Both parallel and antiparallel lead magnetization alignments are considered. The main findings include a wave of spin accumulation and spin current that can change sign as the time evolves, spikes in the TMR signal and a TMR sign change due to an ultrafast switch from forward to reverse current in the emitter lead.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Resonate and Fire Neuron with Fixed Magnetic Skyrmions

In the brain, the membrane potential of many neurons oscillates in a subthreshold damped fashion and fire when excited by an input frequency that nearly equals their eigen frequency. In this work, we investigate theoretically the artificial implementation of such "resonate-and-fire" neurons by utilizing the magnetization dynamics of a fixed magnetic skyrmion in the free layer of a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). To realize firing of this nanomagnetic implementation of an artificial neuron, we propose to employ voltage control of magnetic anisotropy or voltage generated strain as an input (spike or sinusoidal) signal, which modulates the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA). This results in continual expansion and shrinking (i.e. breathing) of a skyrmion core that mimics the subthreshold oscillation. Any subsequent input pulse having an interval close to the breathing period or a sinusoidal input close to the eigen frequency drives the magnetization dynamics of the fixed skyrmion in a resonant manner. The time varying electrical resistance of the MTJ layer due to this resonant oscillation of the skyrmion core is used to drive a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) buffer circuit, which produces spike outputs. By rigorous micromagnetic simulation, we investigate the interspike timing dependence and response to different excitatory and inhibitory incoming input pulses. Finally, we show that such resonate and fire neurons have potential application in coupled nanomagnetic oscillator based associative memory arrays

Graphene Spintronics

The isolation of graphene has triggered an avalanche of studies into the spin-dependent physical properties of this material, as well as graphene-based spintronic devices. Here we review the experimental and theoretical state-of-art concerning spin injection and transport, defect-induced magnetic moments, spin-orbit coupling and spin relaxation in graphene. Future research in graphene spintronics will need to address the development of applications such as spin transistors and spin logic devices, as well as exotic physical properties including topological states and proximity-induced phenomena in graphene and other 2D materials.Comment: 47 Pages, 6 figure