Boosting room-temperature magneto-ionics in a non-magnetic oxide semiconductor

Voltage control of magnetism through electric field-induced oxygen motion (magneto-ionics) could represent a significant breakthrough in the pursuit for new strategies to enhance energy efficiency in magnetically actuated devices. Boosting the induced changes in magnetization, magneto-ionic rates and cyclability continue to be key challenges to turn magneto-ionics into real applications. Here, it is demonstrated that room-temperature magneto-ionic effects in electrolyte-gated paramagnetic Co3O4 films can be largely increased both in terms of generated magnetization (6 times larger) and speed (35 times faster) if the electric field is applied using an electrochemical capacitor configuration (utilizing an underlying conducting buffer layer) instead of placing the electric contacts at the side of the semiconductor (electric-double-layer transistor-like configuration). This is due to the greater uniformity and strength of the electric field in the capacitor design. These results are appealing to widen the use of ion migration in technological applications such as neuromorphic computing or iontronics in general