Magnon-based computation could signal computing paradigm shift

Experimental setup depicting the ferrimagnetic insulator yttrium iron garnet (YIG) wafer with nanomagnetic strips © LMGN EPFL Thanks to a breakthrough in the field of magnonics, researchers have sent and stored data using charge-free magnetic waves, rather than traditional electron flows. The discovery could solve the dilemma of energy-hungry computing technology in the age of big data. Like electronics or photonics, magnonics is an engineering subfield that aims to advance information technologies when it comes to speed, device architecture, and energy consumption. A magnon corresponds to the specific amount of energy required to change the magnetization of a material via a collective excitation called a spin wave (visualized above). Because they interact with magnetic fields, magnons can be used to encode and transport data without electron flows, which involve energy loss through heating (known as Joule heating) of the conductor used. As Dirk Grundler, head of the Lab of Nanoscale Magnetic Materials and Magnonics ( LMGN ) in the School of Engineering explains, energy losses are an increasingly serious barrier to electronics as data speeds and storage demands soar. "With the advent of AI, the use of computing technology has increased so much that energy consumption threatens its development," Grundler says.