Energy dissipation and switching delay in spin-transfer torque switching of nanomagnets with low-saturation magnetization in the presence of thermal fluctuations

Kuntal Roy, Supriyo Bandyopadhyay, Jayasimha Atulasimha, Kamaram Munira, Avik W. Ghosh

Published 2011-07-02, updated 2011-12-03Version 2

A common ploy to reduce the switching current and energy dissipation in spin-transfer-torque driven magnetization switching of shape-anisotropic single-domain nanomagnets is to employ magnets with low saturation magnetization $M_s$ and high shape-anisotropy. The high shape-anisotropy compensates for low $M_s$ to keep the static switching error rate constant. However, this ploy increases the switching delay, its variance in the presence of thermal noise, and the dynamic switching error rate. Using the stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation with a random torque emulating thermal noise, we show that pumping some excess spin-polarized current into the nanomagnet during switching will keep the mean switching delay and its variance constant as we reduce $M_s$, while still reducing the energy dissipation significantly.