Low Thermal Stability Magnetic Tunnel Junctions for Computing

Thermally stable magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) have been used for years for data storage. They have been proposed for use as cache memory in sometimes-on processors. However, thermally unstable magnetic tunnel junctions can be used for novel logic operations. These novel logic operations require an electronic means of influencing the likelihood of the MTJ being in one state or the other. They also require a means of reading the statistical output of the thermally switching devices and of comparing those outputs to one another. In this work, I present two electronic means of influencing the state of the devices, spin transfer torque and spin orbit torque. I also present two different means of controlling the rate of thermal reversal, voltage controlled magnetic anisotropy and a hard axis magnetic field. Finally, I demonstrate a stochastic AND operation combining the spin transfer torque influencing of the device state and the hard axis magnetic field control of the thermal reversal rate. This stochastic AND operation can be scaled up to more complex operations using more stochastically switching MTJ devices.