I used to work on the team...
They were all based in Durham, but then split between various universities for various reasons. But when in Durham we had...
1 Chinese Postdoc
2 French Postdocs
2 British Postdocs
1 Irish PhD student
2 British PhD students
1 Slovenian PhD student
1 British Professor
+ most of the funding comes from a company in Dubai.
The circuits are pretty much unaffected by most external magnetic fields. The problem with them is actually producing a field which a) is strong enough to affect them and b) can change fast enough to actually do useful data processing.
The 200nm wide wires used (some down to 120nm) can only support one magnetic domain across them, so you can't 'corrupt' a single bit other than by flipping it. And the field required to flip it would need to be really strong - probably hundreds of Oersteds.
That's why the logic devices they use are so clever - they don't flip bits by applying magnetic fields to them, but rather the nanowires make use of geometry to force the magnetic domains into unusual junctions where they get rotated.
The best analogy is a car doing a three point turn - a NOT operation. It starts the movement in one direction, and comes out of it facing anothher.
Much of the funding has come from Eastgate, a Venture Capital firm based in Dubai. I think the IP rights are shared between them and the university, but Eastgate won't develop the idea. Rather, they'll look for people who are willing to.
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I used to work on the team... They were all based in Durham, but then split between various universities for various reasons. But when in Durham we had... 1 Chinese Postdoc 2 French Postdocs 2 British Postdocs 1 Irish PhD student 2 British PhD students 1 Slovenian PhD student 1 British Professor + most of the funding comes from a company in Dubai.
The circuits are pretty much unaffected by most external magnetic fields. The problem with them is actually producing a field which a) is strong enough to affect them and b) can change fast enough to actually do useful data processing. The 200nm wide wires used (some down to 120nm) can only support one magnetic domain across them, so you can't 'corrupt' a single bit other than by flipping it. And the field required to flip it would need to be really strong - probably hundreds of Oersteds. That's why the logic devices they use are so clever - they don't flip bits by applying magnetic fields to them, but rather the nanowires make use of geometry to force the magnetic domains into unusual junctions where they get rotated. The best analogy is a car doing a three point turn - a NOT operation. It starts the movement in one direction, and comes out of it facing anothher.
Nope, they've actually demonstrated rotating frequencies causing switching up to the 10s (and borderline 100s) of kHz. Much beyond that is pretty much impossible due to inductance. Propagation velocity has been measured by the team (http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v2/n2/abs/nmat 803.html;jsessionid=2BEBA5768D730301A7C432AF98F1AE 18) to be very high indeed.
Much of the funding has come from Eastgate, a Venture Capital firm based in Dubai. I think the IP rights are shared between them and the university, but Eastgate won't develop the idea. Rather, they'll look for people who are willing to.