All-optical switching in spintronic devices

Spintronics, or spin electronics, revolutionized the field of magnetic data storage in the 1990’s thanks to the manipulation of spin properties of devices instead of, or in addition to, charge degree of freedom. Spintronics was triggered by the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance and led to a new generation of hard disks for data storage, of magnetic field sensors and of non-volatile memories called MRAM. It contributed largely to the new development of the Internet Of Things (IOT). However, despite these major innovations, spintronic technologies have reached a ceiling and need now a major breakthrough to be faster, more scalable as well as more energy efficient. UltraFast Opto-magneto-spintronics is an emerging field of research that combines the ideas and concepts of magneto-optics and opto-magnetism with spin transport phenomena, supplemented with the possibilities offered by photonics for ultrafast low-dissipative manipulation and transport of information. Both light and spin currents can control magnetic order, though the mechanisms as well as the corresponding time scales and energy dissipations differ.We intend to demonstrate that the study of polarised light interacting with magnetic stucture in spintronic devices will lead to a better understanding of the fundamental physics behind light-matter interaction and will potentially lead to another revolution in the field of IOT including magnetic data storage, memory, logic, computing, sensor technologies. Particularly, we intend to show that the use of polarized light as a new degree of freedom may provide a way toward more efficient spintronic devices.

Facebook

Twitter