2023-11-02 15:30:39
Los electronics devices are based on the manipulation of electrical and magnetic properties of the components, either to perform computing or to store information, among other processes. Control the magnetism Using voltage instead of electrical currents has become a very important control method to improve energy efficiency in many devices, since the currents heat the circuits.
In recent years, much research has been carried out to implement safety protocols. voltage application to carry out this control, but always through electrical connections directly on the materials.
For the first time, magnetic properties have been induced in a layer of cobalt nitride by applying an electrical voltage without using cables.
Now, researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the Institute of Materials Science of this city (ICMAB-CSIC), with the collaboration of the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (CNM-CSIC) and the ALBA synchrotron, have managed to modify for the first time the magnetic properties of a thin layer of cobalt nitride (CoN) by applying an electrical voltage without using cables. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Voltage in liquid with ionic conductivity
To achieve this, the researchers have placed the material sample within a liquid with ionic conductivity and have applied the voltage to it by two platinum plateswithout connecting any cables directly to the sample.
In this way, an induced electric field is generated that allows the nitrogen ions to leave the CoN and cause magnetism to appear in the sample, which goes from non-magnetic to magnetic.
The induced magnetic properties can be modulated depending on the applied voltage and the actuation time, as well as the geometric arrangement of the sample, and temporary or permanent changes in magnetism can also be made, depending on the orientation of the sample with respect to the electric field. tax.
“Being able to wirelessly control the magnetism of a sample by modifying the voltage represents a paradigm shift in this area of research,” explains one of the authors, Jordi SortICREA researcher in the Physics Department of the UAB.
Being able to wirelessly control the magnetism of a sample by modifying the voltage represents a paradigm shift in this area of research.
Jordi Sort (UAB)
Applications in medicine and computing
“This is a discovery that can have applications in very diverse areas,” he adds, “such as biomedicine, to control the magnetic properties of nanorobots sin cables, or in the wireless computingto write and erase information in magnetic memories with voltage, but without wiring.
This new methodology to achieve wireless magnetic control is not exclusive to the material used in the experiments, cobalt nitride.
For the ICMAB researcher Nieves Casañ-Pastor“it is about some protocols extrapolated to other materials to wirelessly control other physical properties, such as superconductivity, control of memristorescatalysis or transitions between insulator and metal, as well as wireless electrodes for neuronal electrostimulation, to name a few examples that can expand the scope of application and the technological impact of this research.”
Reference:
Zheng Ma et al. “Wireless magneto-ionics: voltage control of magnetism by bipolar electrochemistry”. Nature Communications, 2023
Rights: Creative Commons.
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