New Material May Break Size Barriers for Information with Tiny Magnetic Regions

Scientists have made the first ever direct images that show that electrical currents can flow along the boundaries between tiny magnetic regions of a material that doesn't normally conduct electricity. These results could have major implications for magnetic memory storage.

"This can provide a more straightforward way to use magnetic material as memory," said Eric Yue Ma, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Today you need to convert magnetic information into electrical information when reading magnetic memory, usually via multiple layers of different materials. But if you have both types of information within the material itself, you can skip that step."

The material the researchers studied is a combination of neodymium, iridium and oxygen. It's magnetic, but not in the conventional sense. While it does have microscopic regions where the spins of electrons line up and create tiny magnetic fields, the fields all cancel each other out in this case. This means the material as a whole has zero magnetism.

In this latest study, the researchers used a technique to directly image boundaries to show that they're electrically conductive. The method itself is called microwave impendance microscopy (MIM), which sends microwaves down through the tip of a probe that is in direct contact with the material. It collects microwave signals that are reflected back.

The material studied could harbor domain boundary conductivity only at extremely cold temperatures. However, it's possible another material could work at much warmer temperatures. The findings could pave the way for creating entirely new types of devices that can store far more information.

The findings are published in the journal Science.

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