Strain-mediated OR (AND) logic gate based on the bicomponent nanomagnet

Nanomagnetic logic devices (NMLD) controlled by the strain clock have attracted much attention due to their ultra-low calculation power consumption. However, existing driven schemes of strain generated by voltage are severely strict with applied time and are particularly susceptible to thermal noise. In this paper, an OR (AND) gate with two inputs and one output is designed under a two-step clocking scheme. The two input nanomagnets are composed of a single material (Terfenol-D). The output nanomagnets are chosen as bicomponent nanomagnets of Terfenol-D: Ni = 1: 2 and Terfenol-D: Ni = 1: 4 for the OR and AND gates, respectively, because the magnetization of the bicomponent nanomagnet stabilizes in a state and does not relax even if the strain clock is removed. With the micromagnetic simulation, results show that for the OR gate, the negative strain clock at the first step can be withdrawn provided that the magnetization of the output nanomagnet reverses beyond the null state. After that, the OR logic calculation can be completed under the following positive strain clock. For the AND gate, the negative strain clock only needs to drive the magnetization of the output nanomagnet away from logic “0” to wait for the subsequent calculation. These behaviors are also observed under thermal noise conditions. Thus, it is demonstrated that the proposed OR (AND) logic gate alleviates the burden of the extreme requirement for the accurate timing of the strain clock. As long as the magnitude of the applied strain is appropriate, the corresponding logic calculation can be successfully performed. Overall, this paper provides an intriguing way for advancing the development of straintronic NMLD.