The demonstration of logic in a magnetic system opens the door to all-magnetic information processing systems, including memory and logic. |
The magnetic data storage industry is moving toward patterned magnetic media, where information is stored in small magnetic 'islands' similar to the ones we have been studying. It appears quite feasible that magnetic memory systems could be endowed with logic capability, thus merging memory and logic. |
The value of magnetic patterning in storage devices such as hard drives has been known for a long time. What is unique here is that we've applied the patterning concept to the actual processing. |
To read the output, we used a scanning probe to infer what the magnetization was. Ideally, in the future, we would like to achieve this (input and output) with the simple application of an electric current. |