GaN-based Room Temperature Spintronics for Next Generation Low Power Consumption Electronic Devices

Abstract

There has been an exponential growth in the microelectronics industry over the last 70 years with a consistent miniaturization of transistors’ size and increase in the speed and on-chip transistors density with reasonable power consumption, as seen in Figure 1 [1] . This trend will saturate soon especially due to the unintended thermal noise that is dissipated, as the density of transistors on the chips increase and as the corresponding electronics approach their physical limits. There is a need to implement new processing and computing techniques [2] with more compact size, lower power consumption and enhanced performance. Neuromorphic computing mimics the parallel processing of the mammalian brain and the quantum decoherence within the neurons, and seems to be promising for future applications and needs high speed electronics [3] . Quantum computing could enhance the functionalities, storage capabilities, and data manipulation and transmission, for the next generation of devices. Spintronics is an enabling technology to meet the speed, power, and scalability requirements for quantum information and neuromorphic computing [4 , 5] . The non-volatile nature of spintronic memory could help to tackle power efficiency challenges of microelectronics. Spin of a material is directly related with magnetic, electrical, and optical properties. It is necessary to investigate materials and understand their properties to control and manipulate their spin and use for spintronic applications. However, most materials show conducive properties for spintronics at cryogenic temperatures, which limits their practical applications. There is a need to investigate spintronic materials for quantum applications at room temperature (RT).