Error-Free and Current-Driven Synthetic Antiferromagnetic Domain Wall Memory Enabled by Channel Meandering
We propose a new type of energy-efficient multi-bit magnetic memory based on current-driven, field-free, controlled domain wall motion. A meandering domain wall channel with precisely interspersed pinning regions provides the multi-bit capability of a magnetic tunnel junction memory. The magnetic free layer of the memory device has perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, so that spin-orbit torques induce efficient domain wall motion. Using micromagnetic simulations we find two different cell designs: two-way and four-way switching. The memory cell design choices and the physics of pinning mechanisms are discussed in detail. Furthermore, we show that switching reliability and speed may be significantly improved by replacing the ferromagnetic free layer with a synthetic antiferromagnetic layer. Switching behavior and material choices will be discussed for the two memory implementations.
Authors
- Pengxiang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4171-9866)
- Supratik Guha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5071-8318)
- Charudatta Phatak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8931-0296)
- Wilfried Haensch
Institutions
- Argonne National Laboratory (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- IEEE Transactions on Magnetics
- Published
- 2025-05-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1109/tmag.2025.3573148
- Primary Topic
- Magnetic properties of thin films
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy