Skyrmion mediated voltage controlled switching of ferromagnets for reliable and energy efficient 2-terminal memory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a skyrmion-mediated voltage-controlled switching method for ferromagnetic nanomagnets, offering a reliable, energy-efficient alternative to traditional magnetic switching techniques, with robustness at room temperature.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel skyrmion-mediated VCMA switching mechanism that eliminates the need for precessional dynamics and bias fields, enhancing energy efficiency and reliability.

Findings

Robust switching at room temperature under thermal noise.

Potential 1-2 orders of magnitude energy savings compared to STT.

Low error rate in magnetization reversal.

Abstract

We propose a two terminal nanomagnetic memory element based on magnetization reversal of a perpendicularly magnetized nanomagnet employing a unipolar voltage pulse that modifies the perpendicular anisotropy of the system. Our work demonstrates that the presence of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction (DMI) can create alternative route for magnetization reversal that obviates the need for utilizing precessional magnetization dynamics as well as a bias magnetic field that are employed in traditional voltage control of magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) based switching of perpendicular magnetization. We show with extensive micromagnetic simulation, in the presence of thermal noise, that the proposed skyrmion mediated VCMA switching mechanism is robust at room temperature leading to extremely low error switching while also being potentially 1-2 orders of magnitude more energy efficient than state of the art spin transfer torque (STT) based switching.