Oxide discovery could lead to 'ultimate' memory device
1 min read
Complex oxides that exhibit both magnetic and ferroelectric properties have been discovered by a team from the City College of New York.
The breakthrough has been described as an important step towards creating the 'ultimate' memory device, one that could even replace flash.
"Combining both properties is very exciting scientifically for the coupling that can occur between them and for the devices that might ultimately be designed, in logic circuits or spintronics," explained lead researcher Dr Stephen O'Brien.
Combining these two properties in a single material, however, has proved difficult until now.
Using an innovative inorganic synthesis technique, the researchers prepared a mineral based on common elements: barium, titanium and manganese.
Together with collaborators from Drexel University, Columbia, Brookhaven National Laboratory and China's South University of Science and Technology, the team solved the structure and observed both magnetic and ferroelectric behavior.
What they uncovered was a new Hollandite crystal group designated 'multiferroic'.
The finding confirmed a prediction by scientists dating back nearly two decades of the ferroelectric nature of such inorganic substances.
On multiferroics and their possible application, Professor O'Brien said: "The Holy Grail in this field is the combination of both magnetic and ferroelectric elements at room temperature with a sufficient magnitude of interaction."
This, he added, could lead to the "ultimate replacement for flash memory" or smaller memory devices with massive storage capacities.
