Today most computer hardware, such as hard drives, use magnetic memory devices which rely on magnetic states to encode and read information.
Exotic magnetic states – such as a point where three south poles meet – represent much greater complexity and may act in a similar way to many complex systems found in nature, such as the human brain and the way it processes information. Neural networking computing systems are being designed to process information in much the same way.
However, while there are already powerful software-based neural networks, their efficiency is limited as they run on conventional computer hardware.
Researchers have now devised a method for writing magnetic information in any pattern desired, using a very small magnetic probe called a magnetic force microscope. With this new writing method, arrays of magnetic nanowires may be able to function as hardware neural networks - potentially more powerful and efficient than software-based approaches.
The team, from the Departments of Physics and Materials at Imperial, demonstrated their system by writing patterns that have never been seen before.
Dr Jack Gartside, from the Department of Physics, said: “With this new writing method, we open up research into ‘training’ these magnetic nanowires to solve useful problems. If successful, this will bring hardware neural networks a step closer to reality.
