Magnetic Transistor Could Cut Power Consumption and Make Chips Reprogrammable

The article says the switching depends on the direction of the magnetic field, so that sounds like it has to be sustained.

However, it could be possible to use magnetic nanoparticles to provide that magnetic field, which is the solution proposed in the second half of the article. A stronger-than-normal electric field could be used to rotate those magnets. The problem is that building such a structure is very difficult. A bottom-up nanotech approach combined with our current top-down lithography would introduce far too many contaminants. Trying to get a nanoparticle solution to go exactly where you want it is extremely difficult, especially due to the high surface forces that make nanoparticles like to stick to things. The difficulty of using a traditional top-down approach is making the nanoparticles able to rotate. There would need to be multiple types of resist used, likely, one to define the shape, and the other to be removed at the end to provide spacing during fabrication. The high surface forces as mentioned previously would also pose a big problem. Nanocrystals lack the stability given by long-range order and, especially with sub-10nm crystals, can have unique crystal structures due to this large stress. In order to mainain stability and not try to merge with neighboring crystals, there either needs to be an electrostatic barrier or physical barrier. Because it's impossible to keep something passively balanced with a electric or magnetic field, there would need to be the additional complexity of a pivot placed at the necessary angle. It's possible that something like graphene could be used to provide lubercatoin of the pivots, but this means that both the graphene and magnet would have to have compatible crystal structures so that the depostion growth grows with a known crystal orrientation (for knowing where to place the pivot).

On the other hand, this technology could be very useful with current technology in MEMS (microelectromechanical systems). A field of these transistors could be used to very accurately know the position of a magnet, in, say, an actuator, or on a spring for an accellerometer.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/6w9E7uTwzUU/story01.htm

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