Magnetism Breakthrough Could Slash AI Chip Energy Use
Date: November 12, 2026
Source: Brown University
Summary
Researchers at Brown University have overcome a major obstacle to creating ultra-low-power computer chips that could help slash the energy demands of AI. Their breakthrough eliminates a long-standing "dead layer" problem that causes promising materials to stop working when made extremely thin. Remarkably, the new technique not only preserves the materials' electrical and magnetic properties at nearly atomic thicknesses but also gives them enhanced magnetic capabilities.
Full Story
A promising new approach to building computer chips could dramatically reduce the energy needed for computing, including the rapidly growing demands of artificial intelligence. At the center of the breakthrough is a special class of materials known as multiferroics, which combine electrical and magnetic properties that can be controlled together using extremely small voltages.
These materials could make future electronics far more energy efficient than today's technology. However, a major obstacle has prevented their use in conventional computer chips. When multiferroics are made thin enough to fit inside these devices, they typically lose the electrical and magnetic behavior that makes them valuable. Scientists call this problem the "dead layer" effect.
Researchers at Brown University have now developed a way to overcome this limitation. Their technique produces extremely thin films of bismuth ferrite, a widely studied multiferroic material, without sacrificing its essential properties. Even more remarkably, the process gives the material new magnetic characteristics that could make it especially useful for future electronics.
"We've established that we can get rid of the dead layer," said Lucas Caretta, an assistant professor of engineering at Brown who led the work. "We show that you can make this material basically as thin as you want—down to a few angstroms—and it's still ferroelectric, and it's still magnetic."
The findings were published in the journal Nature Materials.
Why Multiferroics Could Transform Computer Chips
What makes multiferroics so attractive for next-generation electronics is their ability to couple electric and magnetic order. This coupling could enable memory and logic devices that switch using tiny voltages rather than the relatively large currents required by conventional chips—a critical advantage as AI workloads push power consumption to new heights in 2026.
By growing the multiferroic material as part of a three-layer system, the researchers demonstrated that they can eliminate the dead layer effect, in which very thin multiferroics lose their desirable electrical and magnetic properties.
Image: By growing the multiferroic material as part of a three-layer system, researchers have shown that they can eliminate the "dead layer" effect, in which very thin multiferroics lose their desirable electrical and magnetic properties. Credit: Caretta Lab / Brown University