Scientists seek alternative to Iridium for Storage Devices

An international team of European and Japanese scientists led by the University of York has launched a €4.6m collaborative project funded by the European Commission (EC) and the Japanese Science and Technology Agency (JST) to develop new materials to replace the scarce metal Iridium commonly used in magnetic storage devices.

Under the EU-backed project, the research team, which includes Bielefeld and Konstanz Universities, Germany, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary, and UK-based Mackintosh Consultants, as well as the University of York’s Departments of Electronics and Physics, intends to develop Heusler alloy films to provide a cost-effective alternative to Iridium. The European scientists will be working closely with a Japanese research team led by Professor Koki Takanashi from Tohoku University.

Project Scientific Co-ordinator Dr Atsufumi Hirohata, from the University of York’s Department of Electronics, said: “It is widely recognised that spin electronic technologies will displace volatile semiconductor memory technology within the next decade. Therefore the lack of availability of one crucial element from within the periodic table is a critical issue to be solved urgently. The price of Iridium has risen by a factor of 4 in the last five years and by more than a factor of 10 in the last decade. It is expected to soar perhaps by a factor of 100 due to its wider application.”

Professor Takanashi said: “My colleagues at the High Energy Accelerator Research   Tsukuba and my staff here at Tohoku University are excited to be working with such prestigious universities in Europe on this challenging but vital research. Iridium is such a rare metal - twice as rare as gold in the earth’s crust – that relying on it for such a key future technology represents a very high risk strategy.

Our research programme will impact this key material directly by providing an improved understanding of a wide ranging class of ternary alloys, and we will seek to find new materials and new compositions of Heusler Alloys to replace the need for Iridium in spin electronic devices.”