The heat coming off a smart phone or laptop computer is actually wasted energy generated by tiny microprocessors.
Researchers used magnetic materials called "multiferroics" to make computer processing more energy-efficient, a UCLA news release reported.
In microprocessors electronic currents move through transistors, which are small electric switches; this movement of electrons is what causes devices to heat up. The switches also can "leak" electrons, making it difficult to shut off the device.
The researchers used multiferroic magnetic materials to reduce the heat consumed by "logic devices," which are "a type of circuit on a computer chip dedicated to performing functions such as calculations," the news release reported.
The new switch carries power through the material in a "cascading wave" through the spins of electrons, this phenomenon is referred to as a "spin wave bus."
"Spin waves open an opportunity to realize fundamentally new ways of computing while solving some of the key challenges faced by scaling of conventional semiconductor technology, potentially creating a new paradigm of spin-based electronics," Kang L. Wang, UCLA's Raytheon Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Western Institute of Nanoelectronics (WIN), said in the news release.
The researchers demonstrated that the multiferroic material could increase the energy efficiency of processing by 1,000 times.
"Electrical control of magnetism without involving charge currents is a fast-growing area of interest in magnetics research," co-author Pedram Khalili, a UCLA assistant adjunct professor of electrical engineering, said in the news release. "It can have major implications for future information processing and data-storage devices, and our recent results are exciting in that context."
The researchers have also applied this method to computer memory in the past.
Sergiy Cherepov, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar, was the lead author on the research. "Other authors included Juan G. Alzate, Kin Wong , Mark Lewis, Pramey Upadhyaya, Jayshankar Nath and Mingqiang Bao of UCLA's electrical engineering department; Alexandre Bur, Tao Wu and TANMS director Gregory Carman of UCLA's mechanical and aerospace engineering department; and Alexander Khitun, adjunct professor of electrical engineering at UC Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering," the news release reported.
