MAESTRO - MAgneto-ionic Engineered Spin Torque for Reconfigurable Operation

Project title: MAESTRO – MAgneto-ionic Engineered Spin Torque for Reconfigurable Operation
Main applicant: Gabriella Andersson, Materials Physics
Co-applicants: Robbie Hunt, Materials Physics and Gunnar Pálsson, Materials Physics
Grant amount: SEK 4 000 000 SEK for the period 2026-2029

In order to create more efficient computationally powerful devices, the field of spintronics is becoming increasingly important. By using an electron’s spin instead of its charge vast amounts of energy can be saved by reducing Joule heating. The current cutting-edge devices still rely on currents to manipulate magnetic information, and could be made more efficient if they were manipulated by electric fields alone.

The project goal is to incorporate magneto-ionic elements as an electric-field tuneable component of spin-orbit torque (SOT) switching devices. By applying a voltage, the distribution of ions through the device can be manipulated which will tune the switching efficiency and thereby enable a magnetic-field-free SOT switching of magnetization. This would be the first device of its kind, enabling an “on” state in which field-free switching is enabled and an “off” state in which it is not possible to switch the layer.

This will be investigated in four experimental work packages. We will use rare-earth transition-metal magnetic thin films, sputter-deposited in our labs, where the magnetic properties are then tuned by a solid-state protonpump layer that injects or removes hydrogen ions under an applied electric field. Using magnetic microscopy, transport measurements, ion beam analysis, x-ray and neutron scattering techniques we will quantitatively link changes in the spin-orbit switching behaviour to the hydrogen-induced changes in structure and magnetic properties.