Guest_Jim_* Posted August 21, 2015 Posted August 21, 2015 While many people are replacing magnetic disks with flash memory in computers, some researchers are working to bring magnets back into computers on a whole new level. Spintronics operate on the spin of electrons, a property that leads to magnetism, and by exploiting it computers could run faster and use far less energy. Now researchers at MIT have discovered an exotic phenomenon called proximity-driven magnetic order at the interface between a topological insulator and a ferromagnet. Topological insulators are unusual materials that are electrical insulating through their bulk, while their surfaces are actually very good conductors. Already there is a lot of interest in them for use in spintronics and quantum computers, and this discovery will help in those applications. When a layer of a topological insulator is bonded to a ferromagnetic layer, the researchers found the proximity-driven magnetic order appeared, which is a localized and controllable magnetic pattern. That control includes the ability to create an energy gap, like those semiconductors have, making transistors a possibility. Because there is also almost no energy dissipation along the interface, it could also be used as a quantum wire. While both spintronic and quantum computers are still far in the future, this discovery will have an impact in the present by opening up new research possibilities. Among these is the search for Majorana fermions, which were predicted in 1937 and should have some very useful properties, but have not yet been observed. Source: MIT Back to original news post Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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