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Bernard Dieny is a research scientist and an entrepreneur. He is Chief Scientist at SPINTEC (Spintronics and Technology of Components), a CEA/CNRS/UGA research laboratory that he co-founded in 2002 in Grenoble, France. He is also co-founder of two startup companies: Crocus Technology on MRAM and magnetic sensors in 2006 and EVADERIS on circuits design in 2014.

Dieny has published over 480 papers and has 77 patents awarded. His main research interests center around magnetism and spin electronics, including spintronics phenomena, spintronic materials and applications, particularly memory (MRAM) devices, interfacial magnetism, perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, hybrid CMOS/magnetic technology, magnetic recording technology and magnetic biotechnologies. He received two advanced research grants from the European Research Council (ERC) focused on the design, fabrication and evaluation of ultra-low power and multifunctional spintronic circuits particularly suitable for the Internet of Things.

Dieny is a Fellow of IEEE Magnetics Society. He founded the French Chapter of the society in 2006.

Education

Dieny received "Agrégation de physique" from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in 1982. He then enrolled at the University Joseph Fourier, and earned his Doctorate in Physics in 1985, and completed his Habilitation à diriger des Recherches in 2005.

Career

Dieny started his career as a Permanent junior Researcher at CNRS/ Laboratoire de magnétisme Louis Néel in 1988. He was then hired at CEA/Grenoble as Permanent Researcher in 1992. He became head of "Nanostructures and Magnetism" laboratory from 1996 till 2001. In 2002, he cofounded SPINtronics and TEchnology of Components (SPINTEC) of which he has been Deputy Head till 2015. He also served as Senior expert and Research Director at CEA. He is currently SPINTEC Chief Scientist.

Research

Dieny has focused his research on magnetism and spin electronics, and has received two Advanced Research grants from the European Research Council in 2009 and 2014 related to hybrid CMOS/Magnetic Integrated Electronics. For his research in the field, he was also awarded the De Magny Prize from French Academy of Sciences in 2015 and the IEEE Magnetics Society Achievement Award in 2019.

Magnetic recording technology

In his studies focused on the potential of Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) for read-heads, Dieny demonstrated that sandwiches comprising two uncoupled ferromagnetic layers, one of pinned magnetization, the other of free magnetization, could exhibit the GMR sensitivity required for read-head applications. He along with his team coined the name spin-valves to these systems. He is the co-inventor of the first seven patents related to spin-valves, for which he was awarded an outstanding achievement award from IBM for this work in 1992, and was interviewed in relation to this work at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View in 2018. Dieny also developed a modeling tool based on Fuchs Sondheimer theory allowing the calculation of the resistance and GMR of any spin-valve structures from the microscopic transport parameters. This tool has been widely used in the recording industry to speed-up the optimization of spin-valve read-heads.

Spinelectronics

Dieny has pioneered several very important fields in spintronics. In 1995, he participated to the worldwide first realization of spin-electronic devices combining semiconductor and magnetic layers: the spin-valve transistor. This work carried out in collaboration with Twente University, had a very strong impact and stimulated lot of subsequent studies in the field of Ballistic Electron Emission Microscopy (BEEM). He has also filed about 60 patents related to MRAM, some being key since they are now used by all microelectronic companies producing MRAM. In 2002, his team discovered the phenomenon of perpendicular anisotropy at magnetic metal/oxide interfaces. Moreover, he also launched an important activity on nonvolatile logic combining CMOS (CMOS: Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor technology) and magnetic technologies. His team also developed the design tools from individual cells level to system level required to conceive spintronic circuits. Along this line, they designed and successfully tested MRAM blocks, FPGA circuits, and microcontrollers.

In 2015, he proposed a novel approach for the nanopatterning of MRAM cells at high density and narrow pitch opening the route towards multi-gigabit MRAM chips. His team also proposed and demonstrated a novel concept of MRAM utilizing a perpendicular shape anisotropy of the storage layer to increase the memory retention at advanced technology nodes (sub 20 nm).

Magnetism and Microelectronics Communities

Dieny has worked to strengthen the relationships between magnetism and microelectronics communities. In 2013, he launched an annual Introductory Course on Magnetic Random Access Memory “InMRAM”. Along the same line, with the strong support of Samsung Electronics, he organizes every year a MRAM Global Innovation Forum at IEDM, the main annual conference of microelectronics sponsored by the IEEE Electron Devices Society.

Magnetism and biotechnology

In 2012, Dieny launched a new activity at SPINTEC related to the use of magnetic nanoparticles in biotechnology and biomedicine. In collaboration with other labs at CEA/DRF/IRIG and a team at INSERM, his team demonstrated in-vitro, the possibility to trigger the apoptosis (spontaneous death) of cancer cells as well as to stimulate the production of insulin by pancreatic cells thanks to the low frequency (~20 Hz) mechanical vibrations of magnetic particles in contact with the cells. These studies are now pursued in-vivo in collaboration with INSERM and CHU Grenoble.

Awards/honors

• 1992 - IBM Outstanding achievement award for development of spin-valves
• 2000 - Applied Physics Award, the French Society of Physics
• 2002 - Award of innovative idea and innovative technology from CEA
• 2006 - Finalist of Descartes Research Prize, European Council
• 2009 - Recipient of European Research Council Advanced grant, HYMAGINE (Hybrid CMOS/Magnetic integrated electronics)
• 2010 - Elevated to IEEE Fellow within the IEEE Magnetics Society
• 2012 - Recipient of European Research Council Proof of Concept grant (ERC PoC), DESHYMAG (Towards a fabless start-up of design of hybrid CMOS/magnetic digital circuits).
• 2014 - Recipient of European Research Council Advanced grant (ERC Adv Grant), MAGICAL (CMOS/Magnetoelectronic Integrated Circuits with Multifunctional Capabilities)
• 2015 - Adrien Constantin de Magny Prize from Académie des Sciences
• 2019 - Achievement Award, IEEE Magnetics Society
• 2019 - Recipient of European Research Council Proof of Concept grant (ERC PoC), MAGALIGN (Magnetic Alignment for high precision 3D Assembly).

Bibliography

• Dieny, B., Speriosu, V. S., Parkin, S. S., Gurney, B. A., Wilhoit, D. R., & Mauri, D. (1991). Giant magnetoresistive in soft ferromagnetic multilayers. Physical Review B, 43(1), 1297.
• Dieny, B., Speriosu, V. S., Metin, S., Parkin, S. S., Gurney, B. A., Baumgart, P., & Wilhoit, D. R. (1991). Magnetotransport properties of magnetically soft spin-valve structures. Journal of Applied Physics, 69(8), 4774–4779.
• Diény, B. (1994). Giant magnetoresistance in spin-valve multilayers. Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, 136(3), 335–359.
• Houssameddine, D., Ebels, U., Delaët, B., Rodmacq, B., Firastrau, I., Ponthenier, F., ... & Dieny, B. (2007). Spin-torque oscillator using a perpendicular polarizer and a planar free layer. Nature materials, 6(6), 447–453.
• Yang, H. X., Chshiev, M., Dieny, B., Lee, J. H., Manchon, A., & Shin, K. H. (2011). First-principles investigation of the very large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at Fe| MgO and Co| MgO interfaces. Physical Review B, 84(5), 054401.

References

1. ^ "DIENY Bernard".
2. "Bernard Dieny". scholar.google.ca.
3. "Bernard Dieny's research works | SPINTEC, Grenoble and other places". ResearchGate.
4. "Nanotech France 2018 International Nanotechnology Conference & Exhibition". www.setcor.org.
5. "ORCID". orcid.org.
6. "Introduction to Magnetic Random-Access Memory".
7. Dieny, B.; Speriosu, V. S.; Metin, S.; Parkin, S. S. P.; Gurney, B. A.; Baumgart, P.; Wilhoit, D. R. (April 15, 1991). "Magnetotransport properties of magnetically soft spin-valve structures (invited)". Journal of Applied Physics. 69 (8): 4774–4779. Bibcode:1991JAP....69.4774D. doi:10.1063/1.348252.
8. "GMR Heads oral history panel at the Computer History Museum". September 29, 2019.
9. Dieny, B. (1992). "Quantitative Interpretation of Giant Magnetoresistance Properties of Permalloy-Based Spin-Valve Structures". Europhysics Letters. 17 (3): 261–267. Bibcode:1992EL.....17..261D. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/17/3/013. S2CID 250855305.
10. Monsma, D. J.; Lodder, J. C.; Popma, Th. J. A.; Dieny, B. (June 26, 1995). "Perpendicular Hot Electron Spin-Valve Effect in a New Magnetic Field Sensor: The Spin-Valve Transistor" (PDF). Physical Review Letters. 74 (26): 5260–5263. Bibcode:1995PhRvL..74.5260M. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.74.5260. PMID 10058723 – via APS.
11. "Crossover for 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".
12. Dieny, B.; Chshiev, M. (June 28, 2017). "Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy at transition metal/oxide interfaces and applications". Reviews of Modern Physics. 89 (2): 025008. Bibcode:2017RvMP...89b5008D. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.89.025008. S2CID 125438818 – via APS.
13. Mejdoubi, A.; Prenat, G.; Dieny, B. (May 17, 2012). "A compact model of precessional spin-transfer switching for MTJ with a perpendicular polarizer". 2012 28th International Conference on Microelectronics Proceedings (PDF). pp. 225–228. doi:10.1109/MIEL.2012.6222840. ISBN 978-1-4673-0238-8. S2CID 36177921 – via IEEE Xplore.
14. "Bernard Dieny - Developing multifunctional magneto electronic integrated circuits particularly suitable for the Internet of Objects (Magical)". CEA/English Portal. March 31, 2017.
15. Nouvelle, L'Usine (August 20, 2020). "La spintronique, une filière d'avenir dans laquelle la France excelle" – via www.usinenouvelle.com. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
16. Dieny, B.; Prejbeanu, I. L.; Garello, K.; et al. (August 17, 2020). "Opportunities and challenges for spintronics in the microelectronics industry". Nature Electronics. 3 (8): 446–459. doi:10.1038/s41928-020-0461-5. hdl:10261/234234. S2CID 225522703 – via www.nature.com.
17. Coughlin, Tom. "MRAM In Perspective". Forbes.
18. Leulmi, Selma; Chauchet, Xavier; Morcrette, Melissa; et al. (September 24, 2015). "Triggering the apoptosis of targeted human renal cancer cells by the vibration of anisotropic magnetic particles attached to the cell membrane". Nanoscale. 7 (38): 15904–15914. Bibcode:2015Nanos...715904L. doi:10.1039/C5NR03518J. PMID 26364870 – via pubs.rsc.org.
19. "IEEE Fellows From the Magnetics Society". ieeemagnetics.org.
20. "Thematic Prize 2015 Adrien Constantin de Magny awarded to Bernard DIENY by the French Sciences Academy". December 11, 2015.
21. "Previous achievement award winners". ieeemagnetics.org.

• Living people
• French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists
• École Normale Supérieure alumni
• French company founders
• Grenoble Alpes University alumni