Teeny-Weeny Devices

You only have to look at a photo of someone using a mobile phone from the 80’s to know that consumer electronics have become a lot smaller over the years.

We can’t get enough of little gadgets but, at the same time, we expect our tech to be capable of storing more than ever before. Moore’s Law suggests that technology will halve in size every 2 years. The challenge for scientists is to figure out how to make technology that is capable of storing more with less space.

But there may be a new player in the mini-gadgetry game. Some materials respond to magnetism, some respond to electricity; multiferroics are a type of material which respond to both. This means that they can be used to develop devices which exploit both magnetism and electric charge, so that they run faster and on less power. Spintronic thin films are a branch of multiferroic materials. The phrase ‘spintronic’ is shorthand for ‘spin transport electronics’. They work like this: when an electron passes through an electronic device, the movement of charges generates heat and uses a lot of power. What spintronic technology does is to exploit both the electronic charge and the magnetic spin of the electron. So by exploiting the electric and magnetic charge of electrons, devices fitted with spintronic thin films can potentially harness more power from less charge. The futuristic films require much less space to operate than existing nanotechnology, and so could make it possible to develop gadgets that are much smaller, more energy efficient, and faster.

At Diamond, scientists are using the I16 beamline, which specialises in materials and magnetism, to investigate the forces between atoms in multiferroic materials and how these forces lead to subtle patterns of magnetism and electronic charge. By altering the material qualities of the spintronic thin films and other multiferroics, researchers hope to develop the devices to be as high-performing and miniaturised as possible. The progress being made in this field means that we can potentially expect our consumer electronics to continue getting tinier and tinier, and Diamond is at the forefront of this cutting-edge research; now that’s no small feat.