Reconfigurable All-Nitride Magneto-Ionics

Published

May 7, 2025

Author(s)

Zhijie Chen, Christopher Jensen, Chen Liu, Yijing Liu, Christy Kinane, Andrew Caruana, Alexander Grutter, Julie Borchers, Xixiang Zhang, Kai Liu

Abstract

The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence has significantly increased the demand for both energy and data storage. Voltage control of magnetism has emerged as a potential solution to reduce energy consumption in nanoelectronics. Magneto-ionics, which utilizes voltage-driven ionic motion to control magnetism, has gained significant attention for its potential to enable energy-efficient magnetic switching and the modulation of magnetic properties. Here, we demonstrate magneto-ionic and dynamic control of magnetic phases in an all-nitride system through nitrogen ionic migration. The resultant exchange bias effect can be increased by over an order of magnitude when more nitrogen is introduced into the nitrides during deposition and subsequently reduced by over 70% when nitrogen is taken out of the nitrides through post-annealing. Additionally, voltage-induced nitrogen ionic motion in this system can lead to reversible changes in saturation magnetization and exchange bias effect by 23% and 0.1 T (16%) at 5 K, respectively. This dynamic control is attributed to reversible transitions between antiferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic Mn nitride phases within the nitride layers. These findings highlight the potential of this all-Mn-nitride system as an industrially viable and environmentally sustainable platform, offering tunable magnetic properties and energy-efficient operation, and potential for magnetic field immunity.

Citation

ACS Nano

Volume

19

Issue

21

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c04013

Local Download

Keywords

Magneto-ionic, exchange bias, magnetism, thin film, ionic diffusion, electric field control

Citation

Chen, Z. , Jensen, C. , Liu, C. , Liu, Y. , Kinane, C. , Caruana, A. , Grutter, A. , Borchers, J. , Zhang, X. and Liu, K. (2025), Reconfigurable All-Nitride Magneto-Ionics, ACS Nano, [online], https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c04013, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959525 (Accessed October 14, 2025)