276

Magnetic materials

of the Hall resistance at these plateau turn out to be dependent only on the fundamental constants h and e and on the number of Landau levels filled.

11.9

Some applications

Until the

1950s the only significant application of magnetic materials was for electrical machines and transformers. Modem technology brought some new applications; the most notable among them is the use of magnetism for storing information. In fact, in 1985 for the first time, the sales of magnetic information

products inthe US exceededthose forall othertechnologies. The storage densities achieved are no less remarkable. A hard disk may store information at a density of 5 billion bits per cm2. So why are they so much outshone by semiconductors? May be because ferrite cores, one-time champions in Random Access Memories, suffered a resounding deleat at the hands oftheir semiconductor counterparts, and people are apt to forget the losers. Magnetic storage is certainly not on its \\'ay out. and I arn not thinkin,s of video tape recorders nor of the new digital audio tape. They still hold the market tbr rnass storing of information in digital computers when access time is of secondary importance. The principle of operation of magnetic memories is very simple. At'writing' a magnctic tleld is applied to some area of a tape or disk. and at'reading'this magnetic treld is sensed. The actual technical solutions do need, however, some ingenuity. It is far tiom trivial to design a recording system in which the macnetic head may rnove just a mere 0.25 ;Lm above the surface of a disk. with
a relative

relocity of l60km

h l.

I shall obr,'iously not be able to talk about all the various magnetic memories. t."vo. magnetic bubbles and the neu'ly arrived magnetic tunnel junctions.

I shall nrention only'

11

.9.1

Magnetic bubbles

The usual material is gamet with the general formula R3Fe5O12, where R represents )'tfiium or a combinatton of rare-earth ions. Sometimes gallium or aluminium is substinrted for some

of the iron, to lower the saturation magnetization. In these waYs the

This device. first demonstrated by Brobeck in 1967. works on the principle that small regions of n.ragnetic materials can have differing magnetic alignments within a uniform physical shape. The technique is to grow very thin films epitaxiall.v of either orthoferrites or garnets on a suitable substrate.* The film is only a fer.v micrometres thick. All the domains can be aligned in a weak magnetic field normal to the film. Then by applying a stronger localized field in the opposite direction, it is possible to produce a cylindrical domain (called a 'magnetic bubble') with its rnagnetic axis inverted [see Fig. I 1'24(a), rvhich
shows several].

magnetic properties are bespoke by the chemists, and a typical successful composition is EurErzGao.rFe+,:Otz. Chemistry was never like this when I
was at school.

An important question is, 'Does the bubble stay there when the strong field
that created it is removed?' It tums out that, with suitable materials, the domain*'all coercivity is great enough to produce a stable bubble, and that the most

stable bubble size results when the radius is about equal to the garnet film thickress. that is a few micrometres. The next thing is to move the bubble about in a controlled manner. One way of achieving controlled motion is by printing a pattem of small permalloy bars on the surface. The usual manufacfuring technique for this is photoengraving, using a photo-resist material similar to the process described for integrated circuits in Section 9.22.