This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Xufeng Zhang is using magnets to make computers more power efficient at the quantum level. The Northeastern professor of electrical and computer engineering recently published two papers highlighting small-scale magnetic systems he and his team developed that could help make computers much more power efficient in the future.
From placing more than 300 microwave sources on a single computer chip (described in an article posted to the arXiv preprint server) to creating a new approach to making his systems easier to deploy globally (which is published in Physical Review Letters), Zhang is working on the cutting edge. Central to Zhang's research are magnons, tiny waves that travel through magnetic materials—including nickel and iron—when they are disturbed. Northeastern Global News caught up with Zhang to learn more about magnons, his research and their potential for the future of computing.
A magnon is a term used in quantum mechanics to describe a specific type of quasiparticle, a particle-like system that exhibits specific shared behavior, Zhang explained. Magnons are a phenomenon known as spin waves, which occur when electrons in magnetic materials are disturbed. Notably, this action does not emit an electrical charge.
Devices made using spin waves won't face any "ohmic loss," Zhang explained, referring to electrical power that turns into unwanted heat. "That's the biggest enemy when it comes to modern electronics. That's why your computer processing unit gets hot," Zhang said.
"That's why it is converting so much power into heat due to ohmic loss." Researchers like Zhang are studying magnons for their potential to transmit information between digital systems while using very little power compared with traditional digital systems, according to Zhang. During the spin-wave process, no electrons move, but they still emit energy through magnetic interaction, he said. Hybrid magnonic devices are systems that take advantage of spin waves and other information channels such as microwaves and acoustic waves, Zhang said.
He and his team are creating these hybrid systems to take advantage of the pros and cons of each type of wave system. Acoustic waves, for example, are great for cellphones because they can be used to filter out unwanted frequency interference during calls. They aren't, however, very easy to tune and adapt in practice.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
