MIT physicists have made a groundbreaking discovery by using light to magnetize a material, which could lead to faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient memory chips. Led by Nuh Gedik, the Donner Professor of Physics at MIT, the team used a terahertz laser to stimulate atoms in an antiferromagnetic material, creating a new magnetic state that persisted for several milliseconds.
This breakthrough was achieved in collaboration with researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Germany, University of the Basque Country in Spain, Seoul National University, and the Flatiron Institute in New York. The team’s findings, published in Nature, have significant implications for the development of next-generation memory storage technologies.
Key individuals involved in the work include von Hoegen and Luo, who played crucial roles in the experiment. The research was supported by the US Department of Energy and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and could potentially lead to innovations in companies such as tech giants that rely on advanced memory storage solutions.
A team of researchers at MIT, led by Professor Nuh Gedik, has developed a technique to controllably switch an antiferromagnet to a new magnetic state using carefully tuned terahertz light. The team worked with a material called FePS3, which transitions to an antiferromagnetic phase at a critical temperature of around 118 kelvins.
The researchers used terahertz light to excite the atomic vibrations in the material, which also couples to the spins of the atoms. This causes the atoms to vibrate at a characteristic frequency, which can nudge the atoms’ spins out of their perfectly balanced, magnetically alternating alignment. Once knocked out of balance, the atoms should have larger spins in one direction than the other, creating a preferred orientation that shifts the material into a new magnetic state with finite magnetization.
The team tested this idea by generating a terahertz pulse and directing it towards a sample of FePS3. They then used near-infrared lasers to confirm that the pulse had triggered a change in the material’s magnetism. The results showed that the terahertz pulse successfully switched the antiferromagnetic material to a new magnetic state, which persisted for several milliseconds.
This breakthrough has significant implications for the development of next-generation memory storage technologies. Antiferromagnets could be incorporated into future memory chips that store and process more data while using less energy and taking up a fraction of the space of existing devices. The stability of magnetic domains in antiferromagnets makes them ideal for use in memory storage applications.
The U.S. Department of Energy, Materials Science and Engineering Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation supported the research.
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