New phenomenon in nanodisk magnetic vortices

The phenomenon in ferromagnetic nanodisks of magnetic vortices – hurricanes of magnetism only a few atoms across – has generated intense interest in the high-tech community because of the potential application of these vortices in non-volatile Random Access Memory (RAM) data storage systems. New findings from scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) indicate that the road to magnetic vortex RAM might be more difficult to navigate than previously supposed, but there might be unexpected rewards as well.