First steps toward a spin valve with electrical insulators

Researchers at Irig collaborated with an international team to obtain dynamic coupling between two magnetic layers (yttrium iron garnet) separated by a gadolinium-gallium garnet substrate. These materials are all very good electrical insulators. The spin information can cross the substrate (which is neither magnetic nor electrically conductive) when the information is carried by chiral photons, which are elastic deformations of the circularly-polarized crystalline lattice.

The coupling obtained here is much more efficient than coupling with metal. Not only does the coupling require less energy, it also eliminates the Joule effect. This new spin valve could be used for qubit-to-qubit communication in tomorrow’s quantum computers.

Contact: olivier.klein@cea.fr

Facebook

Twitter