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Centre for Energy Efficient Materials
HomeCentre for Energy Efficient MaterialsResearchICTTunnel vision

Tunnel vision

CEEM’s researchers are exploring cutting edge, energy efficient alternatives to electron-based storage for the semiconductor industry. Conventional non-volatile hard disks, and even Flash based solid-state memories – which are commonplace in mobile phones and laptops – demand significant energy inputs. This has adverse effects on battery performance and contributes to massive energy costs in data warehousing.

The work we are doing with Spin Transfer Torque - Magnetic RAM (STT- MRAM) is opening up a potential pathway towards radically reducing the energy needs of memory. Unlike Flash, where the information requires the storage of charge, this technology stores information in a magnetic configuration with less energy demand.

By combining complex theoretical modelling with experimental methods using powerful microscopes we are gaining new insights into the atomic structure of these devices, especially the multi-layered tunnel junctions where the information will be stored.

CEEM’s groundbreaking work on the role of boron in improving the performance of ferromagnetic materials, for instance, began by going back to first principles to solve fundamental equations about the quantum mechanics of the electrons. We then developed algorithms to construct a model that would accurately predict the properties of the material and how it would behave at the atomic level.

"CEEM’s industrial partners have access to our predictive modelling capability to guide the growth of new materials. They can then harness our atomic resolution characterisation technologies to improve the properties of these materials until they are best-in-class."

- Dr Keith McKenna, Director of the Centre for Energy Efficient Materials

By then using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, we were able to provide atomic resolution images of atoms inside these materials.

To complete the picture, we also used electron energy loss spectroscopy to deliver chemical sensitivity. This enabled us to not only map the structure at the atomic level, but also to identify specific atoms.

CEEM’s ability to carry out this path-finding research is built on three complementary qualities:

- World leading expertise in predictive modelling
- Facilities to fabricate materials and interfaces at the atomic level, using modelling to refine and improve their properties
- Unrivalled experimental analysis using bespoke electron microscopy.