A gateway towards non-collinear spin processing using three-atom magnets with strong substrate coupling

作者：Hermenau J; Ibanez Azpiroz J; Huebner Chr; Sonntag A; Baxevanis B; Ton K T; Steinbrecher M; Khajetoorians A A; Dias M dos Santos; Bluegel S; Wiesendanger R; Lounis S; Wiebe J^*

来源：Nature Communications, 2017, 8(1): 642.

DOI：10.1038/s41467-017-00506-7

A cluster of a few magnetic atoms on the surface of a nonmagnetic substrate is one suitable realization of a bit for spin-based information technology. The prevalent approach to achieve magnetic stability is decoupling the cluster spin from substrate conduction electrons in order to suppress destabilizing spin-flips. However, this route entails less flexibility in tailoring the coupling between the bits needed for spin-processing. Here, we use a spin-resolved scanning tunneling microscope to write, read, and store spin information for hours in clusters of three atoms strongly coupled to a substrate featuring a cloud of non-collinearly polarized host atoms, a so-called non-collinear giant moment cluster. The giant moment cluster can be driven into a Kondo screened state by simply moving one of its atoms to a different site. Using the exceptional atomic tunability of the non-collinear substrate mediated Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, we propose a logical scheme for a four-state memory.

• 出版日期2017-9-21