Scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and the Max Planck Institute believe they've found a key ingredient for super-fast and tiny memory devices: nickel iodide (NiI2).
Normal materials can be magnetic or electric. Multiferroics basically offer the best of both worlds — they have both magnetic and electric properties. This makes them ideal for creating smaller and faster electronics.
The coolest feature of multiferroics is something called "magnetoelectric coupling”. In these materials, an electric field can change magnetism, and vice versa. NiI2 has the strongest magnetoelectric coupling ever discovered. This is precisely why NiI2 could be instrumental in the development of super-fast memory devices. Forget bulky memory sticks, NiI2 could help create much smaller and lighter memory. Moreover, these new memory devices will likely use less energy, making them more eco-friendly.
The researchers used super-quick laser blasts to “excite” the NiI2 material and then observed how its magnetism and electricity changed — all this in the femtosecond range (a millionth of a billionth of a second). They also did complex calculations to understand why NiI2 has such a strong coupling effect.
NiI2 may turn out to be a game changer in other avenues as well. It could be used to create tiny connections within quantum computers. It might even be helpful in building better chemical sensors for things like quality control and drug safety.
Researchers are trying to find more materials with similar properties to NiI2. Additionally, scientists are exploring ways to further enhance (and utilize) NiI2's already impressive capabilities. They are also trying to explore the ferroelectric properties of hafnium to design memory that'll be better and cheaper than NAND.