Science and Technology of Advanced Materials Research: review article on Heusler alloys for spintronic devices wins the STAM Altmetrics Award for 2021

TSUKUBA, Japan, Jan. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Heusler alloys are remarkable materials exhibiting ferromagnetism in-spite of being composed of only paramagnetic or diamagnetic elements such as copper and aluminium. Notably, bulk Heusler alloys achieve 100% spin polarisation at room temperature, which opens up possibilities as spin-sources in spintronic devices. In their award winning paper published in STAM, Atsufumi Hirohata and colleagues describe recent advances in Heusler alloys and potential applications in spintronic devices including HDD read heads and MRAM cells.  

Details about the paper

Kelvin Elphick, William Frost, Marjan Samiepour, Takahide Kubota, Koki Takanashi, Hiroaki Sukegawa, Seiji Mitani & Atsufumi Hirohata (2021) Heusler alloys for spintronic devices: review on recent development and future perspectives, Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, 22:1, 235-271, DOI: 10.1080/14686996.2020.1812364

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14686996.2020.1812364

"In this STAM review article we describe recent developments in Heusler alloys for (anti-) ferromagnetic films in spintronic device applications and beyond," explains Hirohata. "One possibility is producing magnetoresistive junctions consisting of Heusler-alloy films only. Such junctions and devices offer energy efficient operation compared with conventional nanoelectronic devices, which also fulfils the needs of the UN's sustainability goals."

Notably, films of half-metallic ferromagnets and antiferromagnets have been demonstrated near room temperature and precise atomic control of their crystalline structures and ordering offer the potential of showing such behaviour above room temperature, thereby opening up possibilities for innovative device implementation. "Since these alloys have over a few 1,000 combinations, the search for suitable alloys may require machine learning and modelling," adds Hirohata.

On receiving the award and views about STAM

"It is our great honour to receive this highly prestigious award. We are particularly grateful to be recognised as we have been working on the Heusler alloys since the very early stage of development," says Hirohata. "We hope this award will attract more researchers to search for more alloys for spintronics applications. STAM is a pioneering open-access journal, with great visibility and global readership. Its interdisciplinary nature offers papers covering a wide range of fields with general introductions, which are accessible by researchers from different fields."

Reference

Kelvin Elphick, William Frost, Marjan Samiepour, Takahide Kubota, Koki Takanashi, Hiroaki Sukegawa, Seiji Mitani & Atsufumi Hirohata (2021) Heusler alloys for spintronic devices: review on recent development and future perspectives, Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, 22:1, 235-271, DOI: 10.1080/14686996.2020.1812364

Further information

Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM) Headquarters Office, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)
Address: 1-2-1 Sengen, Tsukuba 305-0047
EMAIL: stam-info@ml.nims.go.jp

About NIMS and STAM

NIMS and Empa – Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology have jointed efforts to develop a flagship journal that provides highly-quality information on recent developments in materials science within an open access platform. The collaboration will strengthen the position of STAM in Europe.

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