Electric control of magnetic devices for spintronic computing

The scaling of CMOS technology has followed Moore’s Law for more than five decades [1], enabling the continuous growth of the semiconductor industry. This trend, however, currently faces a major challenge due to increasing energy dissipation per unit area [2]. The increase in power dissipation results from the increase of static (standby) leakage power, as well as the continued increase of density as transistors are scaled down [3]. The former is a result of the fact that power needs to be continuously applied to CMOS elements in order for them to retain their information. In addition, the dynamic switching energy per unit area has also been increasing due to the increase of device density. The search for novel low-dissipation solutions at the device-, circuit- and system-levels is thus critical to the future of the electronics industry.