Concave nanomagnets: investigation of anisotropy properties and applications to nanomagnetic logic

Emerging applications for nanomagnets demand increasingly precise control of magnetic anisotropy. To date, many of the available mechanisms for controlling anisotropy have placed restrictions on a nanomagnet’s material, size, or thickness, particularly when more than one easy axis is required. This gives rise to practical and fundamental challenges to designing nanomagnet-based devices. Here, we review an experimental investigation of configurational anisotropy in concave nanomagnets, motivated by the finding that, in concave geometries, small adjustments to a nanomagnet’s shape result in large, predictable changes in its anisotropy profile. We first employ magnetooptical techniques to characterize nanomagnets with concave shapes. We then design and test a nanomagnetic logic architecture using concave nanomagnets that exhibits improved reliability relative to existing designs.