Ultralow power and shifting-discretized magnetic racetrack memory device driven by chirality switching and spin current

Magnetic racetrack memory has significantly evolved and developed since its first experimental verification and is considered as one of the most promising candidates for future high-density on-chip solid state memory. However, the lack of a fast and precise magnetic domain wall (DW) shifting mechanism and the required extremely high DW motion (DWM) driving current both make the racetrack difficult to commercialize. Here, we propose a method for coherent DWM that is free from above issues, which is driven by chirality switching (CS) and an ultralow spin-orbit-torque (SOT) current. The CS, as the driving force of DWM, is achieved by the sign change of Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction which is further induced by a ferroelectric switching voltage. The SOT is used to break the symmetry when the magnetic moment is rotated to the Bloch direction. We numerically investigate the underlying principle and the effect of key parameters on the DWM through micromagnetic simulations. Under the CS mechanism, a fast (~102 m/s), ultralow-energy (~5 attoJoule), and precisely discretized DWM can be achieved. Considering that skyrmions with topological protection and smaller size are also promising for future racetrack, we similarly evaluate the feasibility of applying such a CS mechanism to a skyrmion. However, we find that the CS only causes it to “breathe” instead of moving. Our results demonstrate that the CS strategy is suitable for future DW racetrack memory with ultralow power consumption and discretized DWM