Patent for Innovative Thin Film Heterostructures
ECE Distinguished Professor Nian Sun was awarded a patent for “Sputter deposited crystalline ordered topological insulator/ferromagnet (TI/FM) thin film heterostructures for spintronics applications.”
Abstract Source: USPTO
A sputter growth method for a crystalline ordered topological insulator (TI) material on an amorphous substrate, which is possible to use at a CMOS-compatible temperature. The process can be integrated into CMOS fabrication processes for Spin Orbit Torque (SOT) devices. The resulting material can include a thin film crystalline ordered TI layer, sputter deposited on an amorphous substrate, and an adjacent ferromagnetic (FM) layer in which spin-orbit torque is provided by the TI layer, for example to cause switching in magnetic states in a magnetic memory device.
