Prague, April 17 (CTK) – Experts from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (AV) have found out a method enabling a much faster data entry and storage based on antiferromagnetism, the team’s head Tomas Jungwirth has told CTK.
The Czech team managed to prove that in the case of antiferromagnets, which behave strangely if electronic current flows through them, the data entry is up to 1000 times faster than in common memory media, that is the data entry based on magnetisation, Jungwirth, head of the Department of Spintronics and Nanoelectronics of the AV’s Institute of Physics, explained.
The team was able to transfer this principle into a chip that can be connected to a computer and work with conventional electronics, he added.
“Our work has not gone that far to make it possible to sell this chip, but it is a piece of evidence that the use of this principle is no science fiction,” Jungwirth said.
“We have thereby provoked a favourable response in the scientific community. This is no longer a prediction, but a scientifically proven fact,” Jungwirth said.
The Czech discovery may be broadly used in the fields of artificial intelligence and neural networks.
“The new way of data entry can speed up computers’ work in the future, since extremely short electric discharges of picoseconds only are sufficient for the entry, which is 1000 times shorter time than in ferromagnetic elements used now,” the scientists said.
The antiferromagnetic memory has also further advantages. It cannot by destroyed even by a very strong magnetic field. Besides, unlike ferromagnets, it does not require the data entry in a binary numeral system, which uses only two symbols, typically 0 (zero) and 1 (one).
Organisers of significant world scientific conferences have expressed interest in Jungwirth and his team, which proves the importance of their discovery.
This year alone, Jungwirth will present the team’s results in Singapore, San Francisco, USA, and Mainz, Germany. He is also the coordinator of an international project focused on research into antiferromagnets, in which experts from Britain, Germany and Spain participate.
