Achievement

IGERT Fellow Ted Gudmundsen developed a single nanoscale bit which can be replicated to make magnetic random access memory (MRAM), a new kind of computer memory that can be manipulated not with charge current, but with spin current. Although several industrial and academic labs are developing competing types of MRAM, Ted's bit was unusual because it utilized multilayer stacks of angstrom-thin layers of cobalt and nickel to create perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Bits with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy promise to bring MRAM closer to commercial viability by reducing the critical spin current necessary for writing the bit. Ted studied this new bit both with conventional low-frequency measurements, and with high-frequency spin-torque magnetic resonance techniques pioneered at Cornell that are better able to tease out the intrinsic material properties. Ted also set up a new high-vacuum sputter deposition chamber to better create these ultra-thin films in the future.