Spin-Polarised Tunnelling in Magnetic Nanostructures: A UK-China Collaboration

磁性纳米结构中的自旋极化隧道：中英合作

基本信息

批准号：
EP/H001875/1
负责人：
Christopher Marrows
金额：
$ 45.66万
依托单位：
University of Leeds
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2010
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2010 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FH001875%2F1
关键词：
Spin Polarised Tunnelling Magnetic Nanostructures

项目摘要

Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) are the prototypical spintronic device, controlling the flow of an electrical current by spin-polarising and subsequently analysing it as it tunnels quantum mechanically through a nanometer thick insulating barrier. They form the functional heart of the two current commercial spintronic technologies, the read-back head of a hard disk drive, and the bit cell storage element in MRAM. As such they are the most important current spintronic technology. Nevertheless, the mainstream MTJ materials systems, based on alumina and magnesium oxide barriers, are already commercialised in these applications. New approaches are needed for the next generation of MTJ-based devices.This proposal builds on a growing and productive collaboration between the University of Leeds, and the State Key Laboratory for Magnetism at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) in Beijing. Both are leading laboratories in their respective countries for the study of MTJs. and have complementary strengths in materials growth, nanofabrication, characterisation and measurement. Since first meeting as part of the EPSRC/Foreign Office mission to China in 2005, the two groups have begun collaborating with two exchange visits on each side to date and the first joint publications starting to emerge. Here we propose a joint programme of research addressing novel materials and device architectures for MTJs that offer the prospect of improved and new functionalities.Our proposal has three main research themes. The first two are based around novel inorganic materials for tunnelling barriers and potentially highly spin-polarised electrodes, and organic barrier materials, self-assembled molecular layers and few-layer graphene flakes. The last is to develop a gated spin-polarised single electron transistor, based on granular double barrier tunnels junctions, which can be fabricated entirely using conventional planar processes. These topics have been chosen since we have identified them as ones where new collaborative efforts that link and build on areas of our current portfolios of research activity to both bring about new scientific results in their own right, as well as offering the prospect of longer term sustainable collaboration between our two groups for the most successful. Supporting this project will allow us to cement our nascent collaborative relationship, and bring mutual benefit to both groups. Not only will it allow us to do science that neither group can do alone, but it offers a unique training opportunity for the young researchers of both laboratories.

磁性隧道结 (MTJ) 是一种典型的自旋电子器件，通过自旋极化控制电流的流动，并随后在电流以量子力学方式穿过纳米厚的绝缘势垒时对其进行分析。它们构成了当前两种商业自旋电子技术的功能核心：硬盘驱动器的读回磁头和 MRAM 中的位单元存储元件。因此它们是当前最重要的自旋电子技术。尽管如此，基于氧化铝和氧化镁阻挡层的主流 MTJ 材料系统已经在这些应用中实现商业化。下一代基于 MTJ 的设备需要新的方法。该提案建立在利兹大学与中国科学院物理研究所磁学国家重点实验室之间不断发展和富有成效的合作基础上。北京。两者都是各自国家研究 MTJ 的领先实验室。并在材料生长、纳米加工、表征和测量方面具有互补优势。自 2005 年作为 EPSRC/外交部访华代表团的一部分首次会面以来，两个小组已开始合作，迄今为止双方均进行了两次互访，并且第一个联合出版物也开始出现。在这里，我们提出了一项联合研究计划，针对 MTJ 的新型材料和器件架构，提供改进和新功能的前景。我们的提案有三个主要研究主题。前两种基于用于隧道势垒和潜在高度自旋极化电极的新型无机材料，以及有机势垒材料、自组装分子层和少层石墨烯薄片。最后是开发基于粒状双势垒隧道结的门控自旋极化单电子晶体管，该晶体管可以完全使用传统的平面工艺制造。选择这些主题是因为我们将它们确定为新的合作努力，这些合作努力将我们当前的研究活动组合领域联系起来并建立在这些领域的基础上，以本身带来新的科学成果，并提供长期前景我们两个团队之间的可持续合作将取得最大的成功。支持该项目将使我们能够巩固我们新生的合作关系，并为双方带来互惠互利。它不仅使我们能够开展任何一个小组都无法单独完成的科学研究，而且为两个实验室的年轻研究人员提供了独特的培训机会。