Stanford Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology

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Current Major Projects

1. DNA Detection Based on Magnetic Nanoparticle Tags and Magnetic Sensors

(DARPA)

Principal Investigators: Shan X. Wang, Ronald W. Davis (Genetics)

Magnetic nanoparticles (sphere) are being developed to tag unknown DNA fragments (single strand).  The latter hybridize with known oligonucleotide probes and become immobilized on a magnetic sensor (spin valve).  The detection of magnetic nanoparticles then allows us to identify and quantify the unknown DNA fragments that are complimentary to the probes.  The resulting MagArray^TM biochip has potential “killer applications” in pathogen detection and DNA forensics. Other biomolecules such as protein can also be detected in a similar fashion.

       Magnetic biosensor with nanotags

2. Spin Filters and Nanoscale Conducting AFM

(NSF and Lawrence Livermore National Lab)

Principal Investigator: Shan X. Wang

Nanoscale spin dependent tunneling and injection experiments are being performed with conducting atomic force microscope (AFM) probes.  In particular, room temperature spin filter, half metallic spin injectors, and ZnO-based magnetic semiconductor are being developed with pulsed laser deposition, all of which are critical components for the emerging spin electronics (spintronics). 

Conducting AFM on spin filter (left) and an conducting AFM tip (right)

3. Nanogranular Soft Magnetic Films for RF Inductors

(Intel, NSF)

Principal Investigator: Shan X. Wang

The trend of chip scaling (Moore’s Law) has driven research focusing on integration of magnetic inductors onto silicon die or package.  Using standard silicon processing as well as specialized processes, we are fabricating broad bandwidth (planar spiral) inductors on die or package with soft magnetic cores for RF and power delivery applications.

An on-die magnetic inductor

4. Extremely High Density Magnetic Recording

(INSIC and other Industrial Members)

Principal Investigator: Shan X.Wang 

The explosive growth of magnetic information storage capacity in the past decades has generated great challenges in magnetic materials, including high anisotropy magnetic recording media, high saturation magnetization soft magnetic films, highly magnetoresistive spin electronic materials, and lithography. Our group is working on some of these new materials and devices that are necessary for magnetic recording to sustain its growth beyond an areal data density of 100 billion bits per squared inch. The requirement of magnetic media with sub-10-nanometer grain sizes and magnetic heads with nanometer-scale features are pushing magnetic information storage research well into the realm of nanoscale science and technology. In addition to hard disk drives, patterned magnetic islands and magnetic random access memory (MRAM) are also being pusued.

Cross section of magnetic write/read heads

       Magnetic nano-dot array