
Florin Ciubotaru- Dr. rer. nat.
- Principal Member of Technical Staff at imec
Florin Ciubotaru
- Dr. rer. nat.
- Principal Member of Technical Staff at imec
About
166
Publications
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Introduction
Current institution
Additional affiliations
September 2014 - September 2016
September 2007 - September 2014
Education
April 2008 - April 2012
Publications
Publications (166)
We present an analytical model for power transfer in a magnetoelectric film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) comprising a piezoelectric-magnetostrictive bilayer. The model describes the power flow between the elastic and magnetic systems, quantifying the transduction efficiency when the FBAR operates as a magnetic transducer. By applying the model to...
The transition from planar to three-dimensional (3D) magnetic nanostructures represents a significant advancement in both fundamental research and practical applications, offering vast potential for next-generation technologies like ultrahigh-density storage, memory, logic, and neuromorphic computing. Despite being a relatively new field, the emerg...
In the race towards "beyond 6G" telecommunication platforms, magnonics emerges as a promising solution due to its wide tunability within the FR3 band (7-24 GHz). So far, however, the need for an external magnetic bias field to allow the coherent excitation of spin waves has been a major bottleneck. Conventional bulky electromagnets are power-intens...
This study investigates the direct magnetoelectric effect in thin film composites comprising a 550 nm thick poly(vinylidene fluoride‐trifluoroethylene) (PVDF‐TrFE) layer spin‐coated onto a 500 µm thick Ni foil substrate. Direct measurements of charge accumulation on dot capacitors with Au top electrodes, induced by the rotation of Ni magnetization...
In this study, we investigate the relationships between film growth conditions, crystalline microstructure, and magnetic properties of epitaxial Yttrium Iron Garnet (Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$, YIG) thin films, deposited on Gallium Gadolinium Garnet (Ga$_3$Gd$_5$O$_{12}$, GGG). A direct correlation was observed between the residual epitaxial strain, bulk...
The parametric excitation of spin waves by coherent surface acoustic waves in metallic magnetic thin film structures is demonstrated experimentally using Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. Complementary micromagnetic simulations and analytical modeling reveal that, depending on the experimental conditions, the spin‐wave instabilities originat...
This paper presents the simulation and
experimental investigation of the direct electromagnetic
coupling between the four U-shaped antennas of a spin
wave majority gate (SWMG). A shielded and unshielded
layout are investigated. The layouts are designed to be
processed on yttrium iron garnet (YIG) films grown on
gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG). The...
A two port surface acoustic wave (SAW) device was developed to be used for the control and excitation via spin waves (SW). The structure was manufactured using advanced nanolithography techniques, on GaN/Si, enabling fundamental Rayleigh interdigitated transducer (IDT) resonances in GHz frequency range. The ferromagnetic resonance of the magnetostr...
A new equivalent circuit fitting analysis scheme is proposed to analyse the measured data of test structures originally developed to characterise high-κ dielectrics at frequencies up to 5 GHz (Zhengxiang et al 1998 IEEE Trans. Electron Devices 45 1811–6). It is compared to an extension of the analysis which can be used for high-κ dielectrics at up...
Magnonics is a research field that has gained an increasing interest in both the fundamental and applied sciences in recent years. This field aims to explore and functionalize collective spin excitations in magnetically ordered materials for modern information technologies, sensing applications and advanced computational schemes. Spin waves, also k...
In this study, we report on the characterization of the magnetoelectric coupling coefficient in Ba-substituted Pb(Zr, Ti)O3/Co40Fe40B20 (BPZT/CoFeB) nanoscaled waveguides with lateral dimensions of 700 nm using propagating spin-wave spectroscopy. The characterization was conducted in a Damon–Eshbach configuration to maximize the magnetoelastic coup...
In the “Beyond Moore’s Law” era, with increasing edge intelligence, domain-specific computing embracing unconventional approaches will become increasingly prevalent. At the same time, the adoption of a wide variety of nanotechnologies will offer benefits in energy cost, computational speed, reduced footprint, cyber-resilience and processing prowess...
It is envisaged that spintronic logic devices will ultimately be utilized in hybrid CMOS-spintronic systems where signal interconversion between magnetic and electrical domains via transducers takes place. This underscores the vital role of transducers in influencing the overall performance of such hybrid systems. This paper addresses the question:...
Spin Waves (SWs), by their nature, are excited by means of voltage driven or current driven cells under two modes: Continuous Mode Operation (CMO), and Pulse Mode Operation (PMO). Moreover, the low throughput of the SW technology (caused by its high latency) can be enhanced by wavepipelining which is supported inherently by the SW under the two mod...
We have studied the effect of chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) on the ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and microwave dielectric properties of Ba-substituted PZT (BPZT), deposited by pulsed laser deposition. CMP allowed for the reduction of the root mean square surface roughness of 600 nm thick BPZT films from 12.1±0.1 nm to 0.79±0.15 nm. Ammonium p...
We have studied the effect of chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) on the ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and microwave dielectric properties of Ba-substituted PZT (BPZT), deposited by pulsed laser deposition. CMP allowed for the reduction of the root mean square surface roughness of 600 nm thick BPZT films from 12.1nm to 0.79 nm. Ammonium peroxide (S...
In the Beyond Moore Law era, with increasing edge intelligence, domain-specific computing embracing unconventional approaches will become increasingly prevalent. At the same time, the adoption of a wide variety of nanotechnologies will offer benefits in energy cost, computational speed, reduced footprint, cyber-resilience and processing prowess. Th...
By their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) excited at the same frequency but different amplitudes, propagate through waveguides and interfere with each other at the expense of ultra-low energy consumption. In addition, all (part) of the SW energy can be moved from one waveguide to another by means of coupling effects. In this paper we make use of these...
Two benchmarking methods to analyze spintronic logic circuits based on MRAM technology are described, setting the target specifications to reach the performance of the 7 nm CMOS technology node. The energy-delay product (EDP) is used as a metric to compare a collection of logic circuits using magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) as logic input/output p...
ScAlN/Si, a CMOS compatible material, was used to manufacture GHz operating surface acoustic wave devices, targeting manipulation and control of spin waves via SAW devices. A thin ScAlN piezoelectric layer was deposited on high resistivity (111) oriented Silicon and two port SAW devices were processed using advanced nanolithographic techniques. The...
Studying the spin-wave (SW) propagation in 3D periodic structures opens new possibilities for joining functional units placed on the different layers of the magnonic circuitry. In the path toward 3D magnonics, the main challenge is the fabrication of large-scale 3D magnetic structures with nanometric precision control of geometry and material compo...
We report on the resonant excitation of spin waves in micro-structured magnetic thin films by short-wavelength surface acoustic waves (SAWs). The spin waves as well as the acoustic waves are studied by micro-focused Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. At low magnetic bias fields, a resonant phonon–magnon conversion is possible, which results i...
Magnonics addresses the physical properties of spin waves and utilizes them for data processing. Scalability down to atomic dimensions, operation in the GHz-to-THz frequency range, utilization of nonlinear and nonreciprocal phenomena, and compatibility with CMOS are just a few of many advantages offered by magnons. Although magnonics is still prima...
p>By their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) excited at the same frequency but different amplitudes, propagate through waveguides and interfere with each other at the expense of ultra-low energy consumption. In addition, all (part) of the SW energy can be moved from one waveguide to another by means of coupling effects. In this paper we make use of the...
p>By their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) excited at the same frequency but different amplitudes, propagate through waveguides and interfere with each other at the expense of ultra-low energy consumption. In addition, all (part) of the SW energy can be moved from one waveguide to another by means of coupling effects. In this paper we make use of the...
In the early stages of a novel technology development, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive assessment of its potential capabilities and impact. Nevertheless, some preliminary estimates can be drawn and are certainly of great interest and in this paper we follow this line of reasoning within the framework of the Spin Wave (SW) based computing...
In the early stages of a novel technology development, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive assessment of its potential capabilities and impact. Nevertheless, some preliminary estimates can be drawn and are certainly of great interest and in this paper we follow this line of reasoning within the framework of the Spin Wave (SW) computing parad...
A thin ScAlN layer was deposited on high resistivity (111) oriented silicon and two port surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices were manufactured, using advanced nanolithographic techniques, on this material. The Surface Acoustic Wave and Spin Wave (SAW/SW) coupling was performed via a thin ferromagnetic layer (Ni) placed between the interdigitated tr...
A thin ScAlN layer was deposited on high resistivity (111) oriented silicon and two port surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices were manufactured, using advanced nanolithographic techniques, on this material. The Surface Acoustic Wave and Spin Wave (SAW/SW) coupling was performed via a thin ferromagnetic layer (Ni) placed between the interdigitated tr...
We derive an analytical model for the power flows in a magnetoacoustic resonator. The resonator consists of a piezoelectric-magnetostrictive bilayer system that can function as an electromagnetic transducer. The derived model captures the dynamic magnetic influence onto the elastodynamics via an effective frequency dependent stiffness constant. Thi...
We derive a lumped circuit model for inductive antenna spin-wave transducers in the vicinity of a ferromagnetic medium. The model considers the antenna’s Ohmic resistance, its inductance, as well as the additional inductance due to the excitation of ferromagnetic resonance or spin waves in the ferromagnetic medium. As an example, the additional ind...
The parametric excitation and instabilities of spin waves by short-waved coherent surface acoustic waves is demonstrated experimentally in metallic magnetic thin film structures. The magnon modes involved in the parametric processes are analyzed with micro-focused Brillouin light scattering. Complementary micromagnetic simulations combined with ana...
By their very nature Spin Waves (SWs) enable the realization of energy efficient circuits as they propagate and interfere within waveguides without consuming noticeable energy. However, SW computing can be even more energy efficient by taking advantage of the approximate computing paradigm as many applications are error-tolerant like multimedia and...
In this article, we propose an energy-efficient spin wave (SW)-based approximate 4:2 compressor including three- and five-input majority gates. We validate our proposal by means of micromagnetic simulations and assess and compare its performance with state-of-the-art SW 45-nm CMOS and spin-CMOS counterparts. The evaluation results indicate that the...
Magnonics is a field of science that addresses the physical properties of spin waves and utilizes them for data processing. Scalability down to atomic dimensions, operations in the GHz-to-THz frequency range, utilization of nonlinear and nonreciprocal phenomena, and compatibility with CMOS are just a few of many advantages offered by magnons. Altho...
Magnonics is a field of science that addresses the physical properties of spin waves and utilizes them for data processing. Scalability down to atomic dimensions, operations in the GHz-to-THz frequency range, utilization of nonlinear and nonreciprocal phenomena, and compatibility with CMOS are just a few of many advantages offered by magnons. Altho...
We derive a lumped circuit model for inductive antenna spin-wave transducers in the vicinity of a ferromagnetic medium. The model considers the antenna's Ohmic resistance, its inductance, as well as the additional inductance due to the excitation of ferromagnetic resonance or spin waves in the ferromagnetic medium. As an example, the additional ind...
In this work, we study experimentally by broadband ferromagnetic resonance measurements, the dependence of the spin-wave excitation spectra on the magnetic applied field in CoFeB meander-shaped films. Two different orientations of the external magnetic field were explored, namely parallel or perpendicular to the lattice cores. The interpretation of...
Having multi-output logic gates saves much energy because the same structure can be used to feed multiple inputs of next stage gates simultaneously. This paper proposes novel triangle shape fanout of 2 spin wave Majority and XOR gates; the Majority gate is achieved by phase detection, whereas the XOR gate is achieved by threshold detection. The pro...
By their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) with different frequencies can propagate through the same waveguide without affecting each other, while only interfering with their own species. Therefore, more SW encoded data sets can coexist, propagate, and interact in parallel, which opens the road towards hardware replication free parallel data processing...
By their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) consume ultra-low amounts of energy, which makes them suitable for ultra-low energy consumption applications. In addition, a compressor can be utilized to further reduce the energy consumption and enhance the speed of a multiplier. Therefore, we propose a novel energy efficient SW based 4-2 compressor consisti...
By their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) consume ultra-low amounts of energy, which makes them suitable for ultra-low energy consumption applications. In addition, a compressor can be utilized to further reduce the energy consumption and enhance the speed of a multiplier. Therefore, we propose a novel energy efficient SW based 4-2 compressor consisti...
In this paper, we propose an energy efficient SW based approximate 4:2 compressor comprising a 3-input and a 5-input Majority gate. We validate our proposal by means of micromagnetic simulations, and assess and compare its performance with one of the state-of-the-art SW, 45nm CMOS, and Spin-CMOS counterparts. The evaluation results indicate that th...
Spin Waves (SWs) propagate through magnetic waveguides and interfere with each other without consuming noticeable energy, which opens the road to new ultra-low energy circuit designs. In this paper we build upon SW features and propose a novel energy efficient Full Adder (FA) design consisting of The FA 1 Majority and 2 XOR gates, which outputs Sum...
By their very nature, voltage/current excited Spin Waves (SWs) propagate through waveguides without consuming noticeable power. If SW excitation is performed by the continuous application of voltages/currents to the input, which is usually the case, the overall energy consumption is determined by the transducer power and the circuit critical path d...
To bring Spin Wave (SW) based computing paradigm into practice and develop ultra low power Magnonic circuits and computation platforms, one needs basic logic gates that operate and can be cascaded within the SW domain without requiring back and forth conversion between the SW and voltage domains. To achieve this, SW gates have to possess intrinsic...
By their very nature, voltage/current excited Spin Waves (SWs) propagate through waveguides without consuming noticeable power. If SW excitation is performed by the continuous application of voltages/currents to the input, which is usually the case, the overall energy consumption is determined by the transducer power and the circuit critical path d...
Spin Waves (SWs) propagate through magnetic waveguides and interfere with each other without consuming noticeable energy, which opens the road to new ultra-low energy circuit designs. In this paper we build upon SW features and propose a novel energy efficient Full Adder (FA) design consisting of The FA 1 Majority and 2 XOR gates, which outputs Sum...
To bring Spin Wave (SW) based computing paradigm into practice and develop ultra low power Magnonic circuits and computation platforms, one needs basic logic gates that operate and can be cascaded within the SW domain without requiring back and forth conversion between the SW and voltage domains. To achieve this, SW gates have to possess intrinsic...
Having multi-output logic gates saves much energy because the same structure can be used to feed multiple inputs of next stage gates simultaneously. This paper proposes novel triangle shape fanout of 2 spin wave Majority and XOR gates; the Majority gate is achieved by phase detection, whereas the XOR gate is achieved by threshold detection. The pro...
In this paper, we propose an energy efficient SW based approximate 4:2 compressor comprising a 3-input and a 5-input Majority gate. We validate our proposal by means of micromagnetic simulations, and assess and compare its performance with one of the state-of-the-art SW, 45nm CMOS, and Spin-CMOS counterparts. The evaluation results indicate that th...
By its very nature, Spin Wave (SW) interference provides intrinsic support for Majority logic function evaluation. Due to this and the fact that the 3-input Majority (MAJ3) gate and the Inverter constitute a universal Boolean logic gate set, different MAJ3 gate implementations have been proposed. However, they cannot be directly utilized for the co...
The key enabling factor for Spin Wave (SW) technology utilization for building ultra low power circuits is the ability to energy efficiently cascade SW basic computation blocks. SW Majority gates, which constitute a universal gate set for this paradigm, operating on phase encoded data are not input output coherent in terms of SW amplitude, and as s...
This paper presents a 2-output Spin-Wave Programmable Logic Gate structure able to simultaneously evaluate any pair of AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR, and XNOR Boolean functions. Our proposal provides the means for fanout achievement within the Spin Wave computation domain and energy and area savings as two different functions can be simultaneously evalua...
Due to their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) created in the same waveguide, but with different frequencies, can coexist while selectively interacting with their own species only. The absence of inter-frequency interferences isolates input data sets encoded in SWs with different frequencies and creates the premises for simultaneous data parallel SW ba...
This paper provides a tutorial overview over recent vigorous efforts to develop computing systems based on spin waves instead of charges and voltages. Spin-wave computing can be considered as a subfield of spintronics, which uses magnetic excitations for computation and memory applications. The tutorial combines backgrounds in spin-wave and device...
Due to their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) created in the same waveguide, but with different frequencies, can coexist while selectively interacting with their own species only. The absence of inter-frequency interferences isolates input data sets encoded in SWs with different frequencies and creates the premises for simultaneous data parallel SW ba...
The key enabling factor for Spin Wave (SW) technology utilization for building ultra low power circuits is the ability to energy efficiently cascade SW basic computation blocks. SW Majority gates, which constitute a universal gate set for this paradigm, operating on phase encoded data are not input output coherent in terms of SW amplitude, and as s...
By its very nature, Spin Wave (SW) interference provides intrinsic support for Majority logic function evaluation. Due to this and the fact that the 3-input Majority (MAJ3) gate and the Inverter constitute a universal Boolean logic gate set, different MAJ3 gate implementations have been proposed. However, they cannot be directly utilized for the co...
This paper presents a 2-output Spin-Wave Programmable Logic Gate structure able to simultaneously evaluate any pair of AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR, and XNOR Boolean functions. Our proposal provides the means for fanout achievement within the Spin Wave computation domain and energy and area savings as two different functions can be simultaneously evalua...
By its very nature, Spin Wave (SW) interference provides intrinsic support for Majority logic function evaluation. Due to this and the fact that the $3$-input Majority (MAJ3) gate and the Inverter constitute a universal Boolean logic gate set, different MAJ3 gate implementations have been proposed. However, they cannot be directly utilized for the...
In this work, we study experimentally by broadband ferromagnetic resonance measurements, the dependence of the spin-wave excitation spectra on the magnetic applied field in CoFeB meander-shaped films. Two different orientations of the external magnetic field were explored, namely parallel or perpendicular to the lattice cores. The interpretation of...
We report on the excitation of spin waves in micro-structured magnetic thin films by surface acoustic waves (SAWs). The spin waves as well as the acoustic waves are studied by micro-focused Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy. Besides the excitation of the ferromagnetic resonance, a process which does not fulfil momentum conservation, the excit...
This work analyzes resonance frequency shift vs. the applied magnetic field strength for GHz operating GaN/Si SAW single resonators. Magnetostrictive elements (Ni and CoFeB) were deposited in the proximity of the interdigitated transducers (IDTs) of the resonators (A-type structures) and also over the IDTs, after covering them with a BCB layer to a...
We develop a generic all-inductive procedure to measure the band structure of spin waves in a magnetic thin stripe. In contrast to existing techniques, our method works even if several spin wave branches coexist in the investigated frequency interval, provided that the branches possess sufficiently different group velocities. We first measure the m...
We report on the first experimental demonstration of majority logic operation using spin waves in a scaled device with an in-line input and output layout. The device operation is based on the interference of spin waves generated and detected by inductive antennas in an all-electrical microwave circuit. We demonstrate the full truth table of a major...
We describe an extension of the micromagnetic finite difference
simulation software MuMax3 to solve elasto-magneto-dynamical
problems. The new module allows for numerical simulations of
magnetization and displacement dynamics in magnetostrictive
materials and structures, including both direct and inverse
magnetostriction. The theoretical background...
In this work, we investigate the spin-wave propagation in three-dimensional nanoscale CoFeB/Ta/NiFe meander structures fabricated on a structured SiO2/Si substrate. The magnonic band structure has been experimentally determined by wavevector-resolved Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy and a set of stationary modes interposed by two dispersive...
We report on the design, fabrication, and characterization of compact tunable yttrium iron garnet (YIG)-based RF resonators based on μm-sized spin-wave cavities. Inductive antennas with both ladder and meander configurations were used as transducers between spin waves and RF signals. The excitation of ferromagnetic resonance and standing spin waves...
Spin wave modes in magnetic waveguides with the width down to 320 nm have been studied by electrical propagating spin-wave spectroscopy and micromagnetic simulations for both longitudinal and transverse magnetic bias fields. For longitudinal bias fields, a 1.3 GHz wide spin-wave band was observed in agreement with analytical dispersion relations fo...
We develop a generic all-inductive procedure to measure the band structure of spin waves in a magnetic thin stripe. In contrast to existing techniques, our method works even if several spin wave branches coexist in the investigated frequency interval, provided that the branches possess sufficiently different group velocities. We first measure the m...
By their very nature Spin Waves (SWs) enable the realization of energy efficient circuits as they propagate and interfere within waveguides without consuming noticeable energy. However, SW computing can be even more energy efficient by taking advantage of the approximate computing paradigm as many applications are error-tolerant like multimedia and...
By their very nature Spin Waves (SWs) enable the realization of energy efficient circuits as they propagate and interfere within waveguides without consuming noticeable energy. However, SW computing can be even more energy efficient by taking advantage of the approximate computing paradigm as many applications are error-tolerant like multimedia and...
This chapter discusses the physics of magnetoelasticity and magnetoelastic waves in thin films as well as their mathematical description. Magnetoelastic waves occur as a result of strong coupling between spin waves and elastic waves in magnetostrictive ferromagnetic media. In a first part, the basic behavior of spin waves is reviewed in both bulk f...
Spin Waves(SWs) enable the realization of energy efficient circuits as they propagate and interfere within waveguides without consuming noticeable energy. However, SW computing can be even more energy efficient by taking advantage of the approximate computing paradigm as many applications are error-tolerant like multimedia and social media. In this...
By their very nature, voltage/current excited Spin Waves (SWs) propagate through waveguides without consuming noticeable power. If SW excitation is performed by the continuous application of voltages/currents to the input, which is usually the case, the overall energy consumption is determined by the transducer power and the circuit critical path d...
The characteristics of confined magnetoelastic waves in nanoscale ferromagnetic magnetostrictive waveguides have been investigated by a combination of analytical and numerical calculations. The presence of both magnetostriction and inverse magnetostriction leads to the coupling between confined spin waves and elastic Lamb waves. Numerical simulatio...
By their very nature, Spin Waves (SWs) with different frequencies can propagate through the same waveguide, while mostly interfering with their own species. Therefore, more SW encoded data sets can coexist, propagate, and interact in parallel, which opens the road towards hardware replication free parallel data processing. In this paper, we take ad...
Spin Waves (SWs) propagate through magnetic waveguides and interfere with each other without consuming noticeable energy, which opens the road to new ultra-low energy circuit designs. In this paper we build upon SW features and propose a novel energy efficient Full Adder (FA) design consisting of The FA 1 Majority and 2 XOR gates, which outputs Sum...
In this work, we investigate the spin-wave propagation in three-dimensional nanoscale CoFeB/Ta/NiFe meander structures fabricated on a structured SiO2/Si substrate. The magnonic band structure has been experimentally determined by wavevector-resolved Brillouin light scattering (BLS) spectroscopy and a set of stationary modes interposed by two dispe...
Exploring the third dimension in magnonic systems is essential for the investigation of alternative physical phenomena and for the control of spin-wave propagation at the nanoscale. Here, the characteristics of spin waves in vertical meander-shaped Co40Fe40B20 thin films consisting of nanosegments located at 90° angles with respect to each other ar...
Spin waves modes in magnetic waveguides with width down to 320 nm have been studied by electrical propagating spin-wave spectroscopy and micromagnetic simulations for both longitudinal and transverse magnetic bias fields. For longitudinal bias fields, a 1.3 GHz wide spin-wave band was observed in agreement with analytical dispersion relations for u...
We report on the design, fabrication, and characterization of compact tunable yttrium iron garnet (YIG) based RF resonators based on $\mu$m-sized spin-wave cavities. Inductive antennas with both ladder and meander configurations were used as transducers between spin waves and RF signals. The excitation of ferromagnetic resonance and standing spin w...
Magnons, the quanta of spin waves, could be used to encode information in beyond-Moore computing applications, and magnonic device components, including logic gates, transistors and units for non-Boolean computing, have already been developed. Magnonic directional couplers, which can function as circuit building blocks, have also been explored, but...