Ferrimagnets to Speed up Spintronics Devices

Instead of ferromagnets, ferrimagnets could theoretically speed up spintronics devices. For a specific purpose, Spintronics devices make use of electron spin. One possible application is in high-density storage devices. Using magnetic solitons (a type of quasiparticle) such devices have been proposed like nanoscale domain walls in which a material has boundaries between areas where the magnetic moments point down on one side and up on the other. In such a device, the solitons would be moved using something called a racetrack, a device capable of moving domain walls or skyrmions along structures such as nanowires using current pulses that are spin-polarized would serve as bits used to encode information.

But the development of a commercial device has been stymied by a problem—the bits are actually too big, which makes it difficult to move them fast enough to make the whole idea worthwhile. The research suggests using ferrimagnets instead of using ferromagnets in such devices in this new effort.

Materials that have properties that resemble iron are known as traditional magnets. The best example is Ferromagnets. On the other hand, these are materials that have two types of ions with magnetic moments that are not equal and which are also polarized in opposite directions. Using ferromagnets could allow for the creation of smaller bits because they allow faster domain wall dynamics to occur.

The reason behind this is no change in net angular momentum required to reorient magnetic moments. They claim making the switch would allow for an order of magnitude improvement in both size and speed without resorting to cryogenics which in a relatively short period of time could result in the creation of new consumer products.