Magnetism and an Electric Field

University of Miami physicist and his collaborators describe a novel approach to switch on and off magnetism, which can lead to a new generation of better-performing electronic devices. By Marie Guma-Diaz and.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) - UM News CORAL GABLES, Fla. (February 18, 2014) — There is a big effort in industry to produce electrical devices with more and faster memory and logic. Magnetic memory elements, such as in a hard drive, and in the future in what is called MRAM (magnetic random access memory), use electrical currents to encode information. However, the heat which is generated is a significant problem, since it limits the density of devices and hence the performance of computer chips. Scientists are now proposing a novel approach to achieve greater memory density while producing less heat: by using an electric field instead of a current to turn magnetism on and off, thereby encoding the electrical devices. The University of Miami researcher and collaborators did not discover electrical control of magnetism, but a new understanding of the phenomenon.