Spintronics

Feb, 2013.

A SEMINOR ON SPINTRONICS
Submitted to SEER AKADEMI of JNTU HYDERABAD

Submitted By G. AMARENDHAR (11011J6009)

DEPARTMENT OF VLSI AND EMBEDDED SYSTEMS DESIGN SEER AKADEMI, JNTU-HYDERABAD

Spintronics

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(FEB 2013)

INDEX * ABSTRACT * HISTORY * SPINTRONICS * WHY IS IT GOING TO BE ONE OF THE RAPIDLY EMERGING FIELDS? * ELECTRON SPIN: FUNDAMENTALS OF SPIN * GIANT MAGNETO RESISTANCE * CONSTRUCTION OF GMR * SPIN VALVE TECHNOLOGY * MRAM (MAGNETO RESISTIVE RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY) * METALS-BASED SPINTRONIC DEVICES * SEMICONDUCTOR-BASED SPINTRONIC DEVICES * SPIN TRANSISTOR CONCEPT * LATEST DEVELOPMENTS * CURRENT RESEARCH * CONCLUSION * REFERNCES 11 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 6 7 8 9 10 3 4 5

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ABSTRACT
In this paper we will discuss about a field of Nanotechnology, which is believed to replace conventional electronics in the near future, i.e. spintronics. Research and technology developments in the field of spintronics have grown tremendously in the past 10-15 years and already have had a major impact on the data storage industry. The future looks even brighter, as many new spintronic discoveries have been recently made a promise of even bigger impact in the future. This paper summarizes the past accomplishments, describes some of the major discoveries that will have a lasting impact on the field, and discusses some of the technologies that may revolutionize data storage in the next decade. Spintronics is an emergent NANO technology, which uses the spin of an electron instead of or in addition to the charge of an electron. Electron spin has two states either up or down. Aligning spins in material creates magnetism. Moreover, magnetic field affects the passage of spin-up and spin-down electrons differently. The paper starts with the detail description of the fundamentals and properties of the spin of the electrons. It proceeds with a note on magneto resistance, the development of Giant Magneto Resistance (GMR) and devices like Magneto Random Access Memory, which are new versions of the traditional RAM. It describes how this new version of RAM can revolutionize the memory industry. There is also detailed explanation of the way, how this revolution can increase the data density in our memory systems. It is followed by an account of new Spin Field Effect Transistors. It also specifies the difference between electronic devices and spintronic devices.

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History The research field of Spintronics emerged from experiments on spin-dependent electron transport phenomena in solid-state devices done in the 1980s, including the observation of spin-polarized electron injection from a ferromagnetic metal to a normal metal by Johnson and Silsbee (1985),and the discovery of giant magneto resistance independently by Albert Fert et al. and Peter Grnberg et al. (1988). The origins can be traced back further to the ferromagnetic/superconductor tunneling experiments pioneered by Meservey and Tedrow, and initial experiments on magnetic tunnel junctions by Julliere in the 1970s. The use of semiconductors for spintronics can be traced back at least as far as the theoretical proposal of a spin field-effect-transistor by Datta and Das in 1990. Theory

Spin Up (0) Down(1)

Spin

Electrons are spin-1/2 fermions and therefore constitute a two-state system with spin "up" and spin "down". To make a spintronic device, the
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primary requirements are a system that can generate a current of spinpolarized electrons comprising more of one spin speciesup or down than the other (called a spin injector), and a separate system that is sensitive to the spin polarization of the electrons (spin detector). Manipulation of the electron spin during transport between injector and detector (especially in semiconductors) via spin precession can be accomplished using real external magnetic fields or effective fields caused by spin-orbit interaction. Spin polarization in non-magnetic materials can be achieved either through the Zeeman effect in large magnetic fields and low temperatures, or by non-equilibrium methods. In the latter case, the non-equilibrium polarization will decay over a timescale called the "spin lifetime". Spin lifetimes of conduction electrons in metals are relatively short (typically less than 1 nanosecond) but in semiconductors the lifetimes can be very long (microseconds at low temperatures), especially when the electrons are isolated in local trapping potentials (for instance, at impurities, where lifetimes can be milliseconds). SPINTRONICS:

Imagine a data storage device of the size of an atom working at a speed of light. Imagine a microprocessor whose circuits could be changed on the fly. One minute is could be optimized for data base access. The next for transaction processing and the next for scientific number
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crunching. Finally, imagine a computer memory thousands of times denser and faster than todays memories. The above-mentioned things can be made possible with the help of an exploding sciencespintronics. Spintronics is a NANO technology which deals with spin dependent properties of an electron instead of or in addition to its charge dependent properties, Conventional electronics devices rely on the transport of electric charge carries electrons. But there is other dimensions of an electron other than its charge and mass i.e. spin. This dimension can be exploited to create a remarkable generation of spintronic devices. It is believed that in the near future spintronics could be more revolutionary than any other thing that nanotechnology has stirred up so far. WHY IS IT GOING TO BE ONE OF THE RAPIDLY EMERGING FIELDS?

1951 mercury memory (UNIVAC)

Today 0.85HDD, 4 GBytes, 12.5 MB/sec

As there is rapid progress in the miniaturization of semiconductor electronic devices leads to a chip features smaller than 100 nanometers in size, device engineers and physists are inevitable faced with a looming presence of a quantum property of an electron known as spin, which is closely related to magnetism. Devices that rely on an electron spin to
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perform their functions from the foundations of spintronics. Informationprocessing technology has thus far relied on purely charge based devices ranging from the now quantum, vacuum tube todays million transistor microchips. Those conventional electronic devices move electronic charges around, ignoring the spin that tags along that side on each electron. ELECTRON SPIN: FUNDAMENTALS OF SPIN 1. In addition to their mass and electric charge, electrons have an intrinsic quantity of angular momentum called spin, almost of if they were tiny spinning balls. 2.Associated with the spin is magnetic field like that of a tiny bar magnet lined up with the spin axis. 3.Scientists represent the spin with a vector. For a sphere spinning west to east, the vector points north or up. It points down for the opposite spin. 4. In a magnetic field, electrons with spin up and spin down have different energies. 5. In an ordinary electronic circuit the spins are oriented at random and have no effect on current flow. 6. Spintronic devices create spin-polarized currents and use the spin to control current flow. Electrons like all fundamental particles have a property called spin, which can be oriented in one direction, or the other called spin-up or spindown. Magnetism is an intrinsic Physical property associated with the spins. An intuitive notion of how an electron spins is suggested below.
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Imagine a small electronically charged sphere spinning rapidly. The circulating charges in the sphere amount to tiny loops of electric current which creates a magnetic field.. a spinning sphere in an external magnetic field changes its total energy according to how its spin vector is aligned with the spin. In some ways, an electron is just like a spinning sphere of charge, an electron has a quantity of angular momentum (spin) an associated magnetism. In an ambient magnetic field and the spin changing this magnetic field can change orientation. Its energy is dependent on how its spin vector is oriented. The bottom line is that the spin along with mass and charge is defining characteristics of an electron,. In an ordinary electric current, the spin points at random and plays no role in determining the resistance of a wire or the amplification of a transistor circuit. GIANT MAGNETO RESISTANCE: Magnetism is the integral part of the present days data storage techniques. Right from the Gramophone disks to the hard disks of the super computer magnetism plays an important role. Data is recorded and stored as tiny areas of magnetized iron or chromium oxide. To access the

information, a read head detects the minute changes in magnetic field as the disk spins underneath it. In this way the read heads detect the data and sent it to the various succeeding circuits. The magneto resistant devices can sense the changes in the magnetic field only to a small extent, which is appropriate to the existing memory devices. When we reduce the size

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and increase data storage density, we reduce the bits, so our sensor also has to be small and maintain very, very high sensitivity. The thought gave rise to the powerful effect called GIANT MAGNETO RESISTANCE OR (GMR): Giant magnetoresistance (GMR) came into picture in 1988, which lead the rise of spintronics. It results from subtle electron-spin effects in ultra-thin multilayer of magnetic materials, which cause huge changes in their electrical resistance when a magnetic field is applied. GMR is 200 times stronger than ordinary magnetoresistance. It was soon realized that read heads incorporating GMR materials would be able to sense much smaller magnetic fields, allowing the storage capacity of a hard disk to increase from 1 to 20 gigabits. CONSTRUCTION OF GMR: The basic GMR device consists of a three-layer sandwich of a magnetic metal such as cobalt with a nonmagnetic metal filling such as silver. Current passes through the layers consisting of spin-up and spin-down electrons. Those oriented in the same direction as the electron spins in a magnetic layer pass through quite easily while those oriented in the opposite direction are scattered. If the orientation of one of the magnetic layers can easily be changed by the presence of a magnetic field then the device will act as a filter, or spin valve, letting through more electrons when the spin orientations in the two layers are the same and fewer when orientations are oppositely aligned. The electrical resistance of the device can therefore be changed
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dramatically. In an ordinary electric Current, the spin points at random and plays no role in determining the resistance of a wire or the amplification of a transistor circuit. Spintronic devices, in contrast, rely on differences in the transport of spin up and spin down electrons. When a current passes through the Ferro magnet, electrons of one spin direction tend to be obstructed. A ferromagnet can even affect the flow of a current in a nearby nonmagnetic metal. For example, in the present-day read heads in computer hard drives, wherein a layer of a nonmagnetic metal is sandwiched between two ferromagnetic metallic layers, the magnetization of the first layer is fixed, or pinned, but the second ferromagnetic layer is not. As the read head travels along a track of data on a computer disk, the small magnetic fields of the recorded 1s and 0`s change the second layers magnetization back and forth parallel or antiparallel to the magnetization of the pinned layer. In the parallel case, only electrons that are oriented in the favoured direction flow through the conductor easily. In the antiparallel case, all electrons are impeded. The resulting changes in the current allow GMR read heads to detect weaker fields than their predecessors; so that data can be stored using more tightly packaged magnetized spots on a disk. SPIN VALVE TECHNOLOGY

Basic heterostructure of a spin valve.

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The first really significant technological discovery was the spin valve, 6 illustrated in Figure 1. This is a multilayer structure incorporating a magnetically hard or pinned, ferromagnetic layer on top (consisting of a bilayer of an anti ferromagnet strongly coupled to a ferromagnetic layer), a nonmagnetic conductor layer (typically copper) in the middle, and a magnetically soft or free layer on the bottom just above the substrate. The pinning of the top ferromagnetic layer significantly biases the switching field for this layer far away from zero fields, so it is not free to rotate at low fields. Thus, pinning means that this layer is always pointing in the same direction relative to the substrate. If the magnetic moments in the pinned and free layers are parallel, the current can flow easily throughout the structure, and the resistance is low. However, if the layers are magnetized oppositely, the current is impeded, and the resistance is high. Aspin valve can function as either a magnetic field sensor or a hysteretic memory device, depending on how easy it is to rotate the moment of the free layer from parallel to antiparallel with respect to the pinned layer. In the early 1990s, IBM started a project to develop such GMR devices as read-head sensors for magnetic disk drives and introduced them to the marketplace in 1998. This introduction had an almost immediate impact on disk drive capacity that has lasted to the present day. MRAM (MAGNETORESISTIVE RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY):

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An important spintronic device, which is supposed to be one of the first spintronic devices that have been invented, is MRAM. Unlike conventional random-access, MRAMs do not lose stored information once the power is turned off...A MRAM computer uses power, the four page e mail will be right there for you. Todays pc use SRAM and DRAM both known as volatile memory. They can store information only
Figure 3. Schematic illustration of the operation of the toggling method of MRAM switching. Dark arrows represent the direction of magnetization of the film just above the tunnel barrier and determine the magnetoresistance of the tunnel junction. (a) Initial state of the structure (low resistance when the magnetization of the lower ferromagnet is aligned with the pinned layer on the other side of the tunnel barrier). (b) Current in the bit line is turned on, producing a field in the y-direction (Hy), as illustrated by the upper square wave in the lower part of the figure; the magnetizations of both layers rotate and scissor, producing a net moment in the y-direction. (c) Current in the word line is turned on (lower square wave in the figure), producing a field in the xdirection (Hx); the two layers scissor more and the direction of the net moment is rotated towards the xdirection. (d) When the bit line current is turned off, the net moment rotates to be aligned with the x-axis. (e) Finally, when the word line current is turned off, the layers have toggled a full 180.

if we have power. DRAM is a series of Capacitors; a charged capacitor represents 1 where as an uncharged capacitor represents 0. To retain 1 you must constantly feed the capacitor with power because the charge you put into the capacitor is constantly leaking out.

MRAM is based on integration of magnetic tunnel junction (MJT). Magnetic tunnel junction is a three-layered device having a thin insulating layer between two metallic Ferro-magnets. Current flows through the device by the process of quantum tunneling; a small number

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of electrons manage to jump through the barrier even though they are forbidden to be in the insulator. The tunneling current is obstructed when the two ferromagnetic layers have opposite orientations and is allowed when their orientations are the same. MRAM stores bits as magnetic polarities rather than electric charges. When a big polarity points in one direction it holds1, when its polarity points in other direction it holds 0. These bits need electricity to change the direction but not to maintain them. MRAM is non-volatile so, when you turn your computer off all the bits retain their 1`s and 0`s.

Figure 2. Photomicrographs showing the increasing density of prototype magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) chips. (a) IBM 1 mm _ 1.5 mm, 1 kbit chip with a 5.4-m2 twin cell in 0.25-m technology with approximately 310-ns access time (from Reference 22, with permission). (b) Motorola 3.9 mm _ 3.2 mm, 256 kbit chip with 7.1-m2 cell in 0.6-m technology with 50-ns access time (from Reference 23,with permission). (c) Motorola 4.25 mm _ 5.89 mm, 1 Mbit chip with 7.1-m2 cell in 0.6-m technology with 50-ns access time (from Reference 24, with permission). (d) Motorola 4.5 mm _ 6.3 mm, 4 Mbit chip with 1.55-m2 cell in 180-nm technology with 25-ns access time (from Reference 17, with permission). (e) IBM 7.9 mm _ 10 mm, 16 Mbit chip with 1.42-m2 cell in 180-nm technology with 30-ns access time

Metals-based spintronic devices The simplest method of generating a spin-polarized current in a metal is to pass the current through a ferromagnetic material. The most common application of this effect is a giant magneto resistance (GMR) device. A typical GMR device consists of at least two layers of ferromagnetic materials separated by a spacer layer. When the two magnetization vectors of the ferromagnetic layers are aligned, the electrical resistance will be lower (so a higher current flows at constant

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voltage) than if the ferromagnetic layers are anti-aligned. This constitutes a magnetic field sensor. Two variants of GMR have been applied in devices: (1) current-inplane (CIP), where the electric current flows parallel to the layers and (2) current-perpendicular-to-plane (CPP), where the electric current flows in a direction perpendicular to the layers.

Other metals-based Spintronics devices:

Tunnel Magneto resistance (TMR), where CPP transport is achieved by using quantum-mechanical tunneling of electrons through a thin insulator separating ferromagnetic layers. Spin Torque Transfer, where a current of spin-polarized electrons is used to control the magnetization direction of ferromagnetic electrodes in the device.

Applications The storage density of hard drives is rapidly increasing along an exponential growth curve, in part because Spintronics-enabled devices like GMR and TMR sensors have increased the sensitivity of the read head which measures the magnetic state of small magnetic domains (bits) on the spinning platter. The doubling period for the areal density of information storage is twelve months, much shorter than Moore's Law,
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which observes that the number of transistors that can cheaply be incorporated in an integrated circuit doubles every two years. MRAM, or magnetic random access memory, uses a grid of magnetic storage elements called magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ's). MRAM is nonvolatile (unlike charge-based DRAM in today's computers) so information is stored even when power is turned off, potentially providing instant-on computing. Motorola has developed a 1st generation 256 kb MRAM based on a single magnetic tunnel junction and a single transistor and which has a read/write cycle of under 50 nanoseconds (Everspin, Motorola's spin-off, has since developed a 4 Mbit version). There are two 2nd generation MRAM techniques currently in development: Thermal Assisted Switching (TAS)which is being developed by Crocus Technology, and Spin Torque Transfer (STT) on which Crocus, Hynix, IBM, and several other companies are working. Another design in development, called Racetrack memory, encodes information in the direction of magnetization between domain walls of a ferromagnetic metal wire. Semiconductor-based spintronic devices: In early efforts, spin-polarized electrons are generated via optical orientation using circularly-polarized photons at the band gap energy incident on semiconductors with appreciable spin-orbit interaction (like GaAs and ZnSe). Although electrical spin injection can be achieved in metallic systems by simply passing a current through a Ferro magnet, the large impedance mismatch between ferromagnetic metals and semiconductors prevented efficient injection across metal-semiconductor interfaces. A solution to this problem is to use ferromagnetic

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semiconductor

sources

(like

manganese-doped

gallium

arsenide

GaMnAs), increasing the interface resistance with a tunnel barrier, or using hot-electron injection. Spin detection in semiconductors is another challenge, which has been met with the following techniques:

Faraday/Kerr rotation of transmitted/reflected photons Circular polarization analysis of electroluminescence Nonlocal spin valve (adapted from Johnson and Silsbee's work with metals) Ballistic spin filtering

The latter technique was used to overcome the lack of spin-orbit interaction and materials issues to achieve spin transport in silicon, the most important semiconductor for electronics. Applications Advantages of semiconductor-based Spintronics applications are potentially lower power use and a smaller footprint than electrical devices used for information processing. Also, applications such as semiconductor lasers using spin-polarized electrical injection have shown threshold current reduction and controllable circularly polarized coherent light output. Future applications may include a spin-based transistor having advantages over MOSFET devices such as steeper sub-threshold slope.

SPIN TRANSISTOR CONCEPT:

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Traditional transistors use on-and-off charge currents to create bits the binary zeroes and ones of computer information. Quantum spin field effect transistor will use up-and-down spin states to generate the

Parallel alignment positive current

Antiparallel alignment negative current

same binary data. One can think of electron spin as an arrow; it can point upward or downward; spin-up and spin-down can be thought of as a digital system, representing the binary 0 and 1. The quantum transistor employs also called spin-flip mechanism to flip an up-spin to a downspin, or change the binary state from 0 to 1. One proposed design of a spin FET (spintronic field-effect transistor) has a source and a drain, separated by a narrow semi conducting channel, the same as in a conventional FET. In the spin FET, both the source and the drain are ferromagnetic. The source sends spin polarized electrons in to the channel, and this spin current flow easily if it reaches the drain unaltered (top). A voltage applied to the gate electrode produces an electric field in the channel, which causes the spins of fast-moving electrons to process, or rotate (bottom). The drain impedes the spin current according to how far the spins have been rotated. Flipping spins in this way takes much less energy and is much faster than the conventional FET process of pushing charges out of the channel with a larger electric filed.

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Electronic Devices
1. Based on properties of charge of

Spintronic devices
1. Based on intrinsic property spin

the electron of electron 2. Classical property 2. Quantum property 3. Controlled by an external electric 3. Controlled by external magnetic field in modern electronics 4. Materials: conductors and semiconductors 5. Based on the number of charges and their energy 6. Speed is limited and power dissipation is high LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Toshiba developed a spintronics-based MOSFET cell .[DEC 11,2009] Researchers manipulated and detected spin at room temperature for the first time .[NOV 27,2009] Researchers developed a way to control electron spin using pureelectric means .[OCT 29,2009] field 4.Materials: ferromagnetic materials 5. Two basic spin states; spin-up and spin-down 6. Based on direction of spin and spin coupling, high speed

CURRENT RESEARCH: Objective 1 : Magnetic FPGAs The objective will be to design a magnetic FPGA which will incorporate finely distributed Magnetic Tunnel Junctions (MTJs) for nonvolatile storage and configuration purposes above of a CMOS core
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circuit. In complement of existing high density FPGAs, it will provide better versatility with intrinsic re-configurability, instant on/off and energy saving. Such FPGAs can be used as general purpose standalone products. In the SPIN project, the FPGA will be targeted to provide intelligent processing of the magnetometers and sensors developed in objectives 2 and 3. Objective 2: ultra-high sensitivity "spin valve" based magnetometers for biochips and medical applications, or "Biosensor" The objective is to develop a new generation of ultra-high sensitivity integrated magnetometers. The highest demand now for this kind of sensors is for medical applications, mainly biochips, bio magnetism and MRI, but there is a large number of potential applications in magnetic imaging for non-destructive evaluation or field sensing for reliability testing in transport, electronics, etc. Objective 3: highly integrated "spin valve" based current and voltage sensors, or "GMR sensor array" The objective will be to fabricate a new generation of dense integrated sensors for current and voltage monitoring. One main output is the monitoring of fuel cells and batteries. Typical fuel cells for automotive applications will contain about 240 cells providing each one 1.3V. For the safety of the car and for efficient energy monitoring, it is necessary to follow in real time the voltage behavior of each cell with insulation between the control systems of at least 1.5kV.

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CONCLUSION
Interest in Spintronics arises, in part, from the looming problem of exhausting the fundamental physical limits of conventional electronics. However, complete reconstruction of industry is unlikely and Spintronics is a variation of current technology. The spin of the electron has attracted renewed interest because it promises a wide variety of new devices that combine logic, storage and sensor applications. So with this paper we have proved that the new generation of computing and information technology is on its way to revolutionize the 21st century. We believe it makes sense instead to build on the extensive foundations of conventional electronic semiconductor technology; we exploit the spin of the electron and create new devices and circuits, which could be more beneficial.

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REFERNCES
1. www.wikipidia.com 2. www.mrs.org/bulletin 3. www.dac.neu.edu 4. www.physics.udel.edu 5. www.nano.caltech.edu 6. www.spintronics-info.com 7. www.nanotech-now.com 8. www.technology24.com