Magnetically engineered spintronic sensors and memory

The discovery of enhanced magnetoresistance and oscillatory interlayer exchange coupling in transition metal multilayers just over a decade ago has enabled the development of new classes of magnetically engineered magnetic thin-film materials suitable for advanced magnetic sensors and magnetic random access memories. Magnetic sensors based on spin-valve giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sandwiches with artificial antiferromagnetic reference layers have resulted in enormous increases in the storage capacity of magnetic hard disk drives. The unique properties of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) devices has led to the development of an advanced high performance nonvolatile magnet random access memory: with density approaching that of dynamic random-access memory (RAM) and read-write speeds comparable to static RAM. Both GMR and MTJ devices are examples of spintronic materials in which the flow of spin-polarized electrons is manipulated by controlling, via magnetic fields, the orientation of magnetic moments in inhomogeneous magnetic thin film systems. More complex devices, including three-terminal hot electron magnetic tunnel transistors, suggest that there are many other applications of spintronic materials.