Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed an antiferromagnetic spintronic switching device that operates at picosecond speeds, potentially enabling computer processors to run up to one thousand times faster than today’s silicon-based AI accelerators while generating almost no additional heat.
Conventional transistors rely on the continuous flow of electrical current to flip binary states, a process that produces significant resistive heating and limits both speed and energy efficiency, especially in densely packed data centers.
The new device instead uses thin layers of tantalum and the antiferromagnetic material manganese tin deposited on a silica substrate. An ultrafast electrical or optical pulse lasting about forty picoseconds flips the magnetic orientation of electron spins within the antiferromagnet, encoding a non-volatile bit of information.
Because the magnetic state is retained without ongoing current, waste heat remains minimal even after billions of switching cycles. Laboratory tests demonstrated stable operation through more than one hundred billion flips, far beyond the endurance of conventional high-speed chips under comparable conditions.
Performance is expected to improve further as the components are scaled down, offering a path toward processors that combine extreme speed with dramatically lower power consumption.
If successfully integrated into practical circuits, the technology could sharply reduce cooling demands in servers and extend battery life in portable electronics, addressing one of the most stubborn bottlenecks in modern computing.
Source: Tsai et al., “Picosecond ultralow-power switching device based on an antiferromagnet,” Science, 2026.
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