The IBM researchers have described in two papers published in the April 11 issue of Science a technology that could change radically the way we are storing our electronic data and it could lead to a new class of electronic devices.

The new technology, called racetrack memory, combines the main advantages of flash memory and hard drives. According to IBM Fellow Stuart Parkin and colleagues at the IBM Almaden Research Center, racetrack memory will offer not only the high performance and reliability of flash, but also high capacity and low costs.

Of course, the technology is still ten years away, but the perspectives are amazing. The IBM researchers noted that the racetrack memory could enable a handheld device to store close to one half million songs or around 3,500 movies.

But the racetrack memory will have also another major advantage: it requires much less power and it generates less heat.

As a result, within ten years, we could expect a MP3 player that will store hundreds of thousands of songs and will run for weeks on a single battery.

"It has been an exciting adventure to have been involved with research into metal spintronics since its inception almost 20 years ago with our work on spin-valve structures," said Dr. Parkin. "The combination of extraordinarily interesting physics and spintronic materials engineering, one atomic layer at a time, continues to be highly challenging and very rewarding. The promise of racetrack memory - for example, the ability to carry massive amounts of information in your pocket - could unleash creativity leading to devices and applications that nobody has imagined yet."

In their revie, "Magnetic Domain-Wall Racetrack Memory," Dr. Parkin and colleagues describe the use of magnetic domains to store information in columns of magnetic material (the "racetracks") arranged perpendicularly or horizontally on the surface of a silicon wafer. Magnetic domain walls are then formed within the columns delineating regions magnetized in opposite directions (e.g. up or down) along a racetrack. Each domain has a "head" (positive or north pole) and a "tail" (negative or south pole). Successive domain walls along the racetrack alternate between "head to head" and "tail to tail" configurations. The spacing between consecutive domain walls (that is, the bit length) is controlled by pinning sites fabricated along the racetrack.

Since racetrack memory has no moving parts, and, rather than storing data as ensemble of electronic charge, uses the "spin" of the electron to store data, it has no wear-out mechanism and so can be rewritten endlessly without any wear and tear.

"It will take two to four years to build a prototype in which we build these reading-and-writing elements on a nanoscopic scale. In four years we can perhaps demonstrate it works and then manufacture it," Parkin said.

Further understanding of the interaction of spin polarized current with magnetic moments is essential. "For example, this might allow a reduction in the current density needed to manipulate or move domain walls," said Dr. Parkin. "This would drop the power needed for racetrack further, and enable even lower power devices. We expect that our exploration of a wide variety of materials and structures will provide new insight into domain wall dynamics driven by current, making possible domain wall based memory and even logic devices that were previously inconceivable. It will not only change the way we look at storage, but the way we look at processing information. We're moving into a world that is more data-centric than computing-centric."

A video about the new technology is available here.