Bernard DIENY receives the 2018 IEEE Carrier Achievement Award for contributions to spintronics applications including spin-valves and MRAMs and for strengthening the relationship between magnetics and microelectronics communities. The Award will be handed out at the upcoming MMM/Intermag conference in Washington in January 2019. Through this award Bernard Diény becomes a life member in the IEEE Magnetics Society.
Bernard DIENY has been conducting research in magnetism and spin electronics for 35 years. He played a key role in the pioneer work on giant magnetoresistance spin-valves which were introduced in hard disk drives in 1998 [1]. He received an outstanding achievement award from IBM for this work in 2002. In 2002, he has been involved in the discovery of the perpendicular anisotropy at magnetic metal/oxide interfaces which is nowadays used in pSTT-MRAM to reduce the ratio between switching energy and thermal stability [4-6]. This work has recently been summarized in a Review of Modern Physics article [5]. He introduced several innovative concepts of spintronics devices [2,3,7-11] including the spin-valve transistor [2], several designs of MRAM cells (thermally assisted MRAM, precessional MRAM, double MTJ MRAM [3,6]) and of spin transfer oscillators (e.g. perpendicular polarizer and in-plane free layer). More recently, he launched a new activity in his group oriented towards applications of nanomagnetism in biotechnology and biomedicine, in particular a new approach of cancer treatment based on the mechanical vibrations of magnetic nanoparticles [12]. In 2001, he was co-founder of SPINTEC laboratory (Spintronics and Technology of components) in Grenoble, which now counts about 90 members. He cofounded two startup companies: Crocus Technology on MRAM and magnetic sensors in 2006 and EVADERIS on CMOS/magnetic circuits design in 2014. He received two Advanced Research grants from the European Research Council in 2009 and 2014 related to hybrid CMOS/Magnetic Integrated Electronics. He was made IEEE Fellow in 2010 and received the De Magny Prize from French Academy of Sciences in 2015 (Awarded once every 2 years for work recognized as outstanding by the Academy). B.DIENY’s work on spin-valves had a clear impact in hard disk drives industry and his work on the perpendicular anisotropy at magnetic metal/oxide interfaces will have soon in microelectronics industry considering that Samsung and TSMC have announced volume production of perpendicular embedded MRAM for 2018 (Y.J.Song et al,(Samsung), DOI: 10.1109/IEDM.2016.7838491 ; https://www.mram-info.com/tags/companies/samsung (Samsung Electronics) ; https://www.mram-info.com/tags/mram_production (Global Foundries); https://www.mram-info.com/tsmc-start-emram-production-2018 (TSMC)).
Overall, Bernard DIENY published more than 430 peer-reviewed papers cited ~12000 times. He filed to date 70 granted patents. h-index : 52.
1. Giant magnetoresistance in soft ferromagnetic multilayers, B.Dieny, V.S.Speriosu, S.Metin, S.S.P.Parkin, B.A.Gurney, D.Wilhoit, D.Mauri, Phys.Rev.B.(rapid.Comm.), 43 (1991) 1297. (>2000 citations)
2. Perpendicular hot electron spin-valve effect in a new magnetic field sensor: the spin-valve transistor, D.J.Monsma, J.C.Lodder, Th J.A.Popma, B.Dieny, Phys.Rev.Lett. 74 (1995) 5260. (>480citations)
3. Magnetic device with magnetic tunnel junction, memory and read/write methods using same, B.Dieny, O.Redon, FR2832542 B1, US6950335 B2 (Patent on thermally assisted MRAM)
4. Crossover from in-plane to perpendicular anisotropy in Pt/CoFe/AlOx as a function of the Al degree of oxidation : a very accurate control of the oxidation of tunnel barrier, S.Monso, B.Rodmacq, S.Auffret, G.Casali, F.Fettar, B.Gilles, P.Boyer and B.Dieny, Appl.Phys.Lett. 80, 4157 (2002) (>125 citations).
5. Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at magnetic metal/oxide interfaces and applications, B.Dieny and M.Chshiev, Review of Modern Physics 89, 025008 (2017).
6. Multilayer device, method for producing such a device, magnetic field sensor, magnetic memory and logic gate using such a device (patents related to interfacial PMA at magnetic metal/oxide interfaces now used in pSTT-MRAM), B.Rodmacq, S.Auffret, B.Dieny, L.E.Nistor, J.Moritz, US8,247,093B2(2006) and US8,513,944B2(2008)
7. Spin-torque oscillator using a perpendicular polarizer and a planar free layer, D. Houssameddine, U. Ebels, B. Delaët, B. Rodmacq, I. Firastrau, F. Ponthenier, M. Brunet, C. Thirion, J. P. Michel, L. D. Buda-Prejbeanu, M. C. Cyrille, O. Redon, and B. Dieny, Nature Materials 6, 447 (2007) (>450 citations).
8. Spin-torque influence on the high-frequency magnetization fluctuations in magnetic tunnel junctions, S. Petit, C. Baraduc, C. Thirion, U. Ebels, Y. Liu, M. Li, P. Wang, and B. Dieny, Phys.Rev.Lett.98, 077203 (2007). (>160 citations)
9. Magnetic device and read and write methods in such device (thermally assisted STT-MRAM using a temperature induced reorientation of anisotropy from out-of-plane to in-plane), B.Dieny, US8811073(B2), EP2612359, filed 01/09/2010
10. Spintronics, H.Ohno, M.Stiles, B.Dieny, PROCEEDINGS of the IEEE, 104, 1782-1786 (2016).
11. Introduction to MRAM Book edited by B.Dieny, R.Goldfarb, K.J.Lee, Wiley-IEEE Press, (2017)
12. Triggering the apoptosis of targeted human renal cancer cells by the vibration of anisotropic magnetic particles attached to the cell membrane.
Leulmi S, Chauchet X, Morcrette M, Ortiz G, Joisten H, Sabon P, Livache T, Hou Y, Carrière M, Lequien S, Dieny B, Nanoscale. 14, 15904 (2015).
