Title:  Spintronic Logic and Ferroelectric Memory for the Beyond CMOS Era

Committee: 

Dr. Naeemi, Advisor     

Dr. Davis, Chair

Dr. Mukhopadhyay

Abstract: The objective of this proposal is to explore spintronic logic and ferroelectric memory as potential solutions to beyond complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technologies, since devices based on ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity hold great promise for the next-generation non-volatile digital computing and storage. For spintronic logic, novel devices and interconnects using spin-transfer torque (STT) on ferromagnetic metals and spin diffusive transport through non-magnetic channel materials are proposed, and comprehensive physical models including spin injection, spin transport and stochastic magnetization dynamics are developed to justify the conceptual idea. On the other hand, recently ferroelectric tunnel junctions (FTJs) have been an active research topic in emerging memory technologies due to an extremely high on/off ratio originated from the giant tunneling electroresistance (TER) effect. Thus, a new theoretical approach comprising quantum transport and thermodynamics is proposed to describe FTJ I-V characteristics. Under this formalism, an FTJ with different contacts will be studied and thus the key factors of showing the high TER effect will be clarified.