Nanosecond stochastic operation in perpendicular superparamagnetic tunnel junctions

We demonstrate the miniaturization of perpendicularly magnetized superparamagnetic tunnel junctions (SMTJs) down to 50 nm in diameter. We experimentally show stochastic reversals in those junctions, with tunable mean dwell times down to a few nanoseconds through applied magnetic field and voltage. The mean dwell times measured at negligible bias voltage agree with our simulations based on Langer's theory. We shed light on an Arrhenius prefactor τ_0 of a few femtoseconds, implying that the rates of thermally-activated magnetic transitions exceed the GHz-to-THz limitation of macrospin models, whereby τ_0∼1 ns. We explain the small prefactor values by a Meyer-Neldel compensation phenomenon, where the prefactor exhibits a large entropic contribution with an exponential dependence on the activation energy. These findings pave the way towards the development of ultrafast, low-power unconventional computing schemes operating by leveraging thermal noise in perpendicular SMTJs, which are scalable below 20 nm.