Voltage-Reconfigurable Magnetic Invisibility: A New Concept for Data Security Based on Engineered Magnetoelectric Materials

With the advent of Big Data, information is facing new, potentially more damaging, security threats. The current trend to enhance data protection is to use increasingly complex mathematical algorithms to encrypt information. This approach requires exponentially growing amounts of data, time and power resources. REMINDS proposes a radically new concept to boost data security: to act directly at material level, i.e., in the way information is stored. The project is built on the disruptive idea of using voltage to activate/deactivate magnetism via strain or ion migration effects and it tackles novel strategies to control the mutual interactions between ferromagnetic (FM), antiferromagnetic (AFM) and ferroelectric (FE) materials. While data written in ferromagnets can be read using conventional heads, AFM and FE materials are invisible to magnetic sensors due to their lack of magnetic stray fields (methods to read sub-200 nm AFM or FE domains are complex and often destructive). REMINDS will develop advanced engineering protocols to (i) transfer information from FM to AFM or FE materials, (ii) keep the data hidden in the AFM or FE layers while the FM state is switched off and (iii) retrieve the information whenever deemed necessary. Neuromorphic-inspired layouts will be used to selectively apply these protocols to specific memory units that will incorporate stochastic physical phenomena. This will be the basis of new energy-efficient proof-of-concept data protection designs whose working principle will be tested at lab scale for potential applications in anti-counterfeiting and anti-hacking technologies. REMINDS is expected to revolutionize magnetoelectricity, exploiting voltage-programmable magnetism to an unprecedented extent and forging an entirely new paradigm in data security. Its outcomes will bring ground-breaking scientific contributions to the fields of magnetism, spintronics, piezotronics and flexible electronics, and will have a huge socio-economic impact.