Synergy of Spin-Orbit Torque and Built-In Field in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions with Tilted Magnetic Anisotropy: Toward Tunable and Reliable Spintronic Neurons

Abstract

Owing to programmable nonlinear dynamics, magnetic domain wall (DW)-based devices can be configured to function as spintronic neurons, promising to execute sophisticated tasks as a human brain. Developing energy-efficient, CMOS compatible, reliable, and tunable spintronic neurons to emulate brain-inspired processes has been a key research goal for decades. Here, a new type of DW device is reported with biological neuron characteristics driven by the synergistic interaction between spin-orbit torque and built-in field (Hbuilt-in) in magnetic tunnel junctions, enabling time- and energy-efficient leaky-integrate-and-fire and self-reset neuromorphic implementations. A tilted magnetic anisotropic free layer is proposed and further executed to mitigate the DW retrograde motion by suppressing the Walker breakdown. Complementary experiments and micromagnetic co-simulation results show that the integrating/leaking time of the developed spintronic neuron can be tuned to 12/15 ns with an integrating power consumption of 65 µW, which is 36× and 1.84× time and energy efficient than the state-of-the-art alternatives, respectively. Moreover, the spatial distribution of Hbuilt-in can be modulated by adjusting the width and compensation of the reference layer, facilitating tunable activation function generator exploration. Such architecture demonstrates great potential in both fundamental research and new trajectories of technology advancement for spintronic neuron hardware applications.