In 2023, researchers at EPFL made a major breakthrough by transmitting and storing data using spin waves, magnetic waves that carry no electrical charge, instead of traditional electron flows. The team, led by Dirk Grundler from the Lab of Nanoscale Magnetic Materials and Magnonics in the School of Engineering, used radiofrequency signals to excite spin waves strongly enough to reverse the magnetization of tiny nanomagnets. This switching between magnetic states, such as from 0 to 1, allows the nanomagnets to store digital information, a fundamental process in computer memory and broader information and communication technologies.
This advance marked a significant step toward more sustainable computing. By encoding data with spin waves, whose quasiparticles are known as magnons, the researchers could potentially eliminate the energy loss, or Joule heating, that plagues electron-based devices. However, at the time, the spin wave signals could only switch the nanomagnets once and could not yet be used to reset them for overwriting existing data.
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