Title: Towards Ultralow-Power and Scalable Nanodevices Using Quantum
Materials
Abstract: The current electronics industry is facing challenges both from the fundamental
physics limit of silicon on the small scale, and the new demand for big-data
applications on the large scale. Spintronics, utilizing spin degree of freedom, is a
promising candidate for future beyond-CMOS devices and systems, thanks to
their low power consumption, nonvolatility, and easy 3D integration. The
emerging 2D magnets can preserve single-phase magnetism even in monolayer
(under 1 nm) limits, and thus they are promising to further scale down devices.
They have a sharp interface and atomically thin nature, and designer quantum
heterostructures and more functionalities (e.g. stacking order, twist angle,
thickness, and electric gating) can be achieved.
In this talk, I will discuss 2D spintronics based on skyrmions and
antiferromagnets, and their potential applications. In the first part, with a stacking
order degree of freedom, I will present observations of real-space topological
spin textures – magnetic skyrmions, in 2D ferromagnet/transition metal
dichalcogenide heterostructures. This is the first direct observation of skyrmion
lattice in 2D layered magnets. By further extending the hero structure to a 2D
ferromagnet/2D ferromagnet system, I will present the vertical imprinting of
skyrmions to neighboring layers, adding new functionality to skyrmion-based
spintronics. In the second part, I will discuss the exchange coupling and voltage
controlled magnetism in 2D antiferromagnet-based heterostructures, a step
towards energy-efficient and fast spintronics. I will also discuss future directions,
including energy-efficient control in skyrmions and unconventional computing
with spintronics.
Bio: Yingying Wu is currently a postdoctoral associate at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and a postdoctoral fellow in CIQM at Harvard University. She
obtained her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of
California, Los Angeles in 2020. Before that, she received a master degree in
physics from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and a
bachelor degree in Physics from Nanjing University. Her research focuses on
emerging quantum materials and devices for nanoelectronics.