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Voltage-controlled inversion of tunnel magnetoresistance in epitaxial Nickel/Graphene/MgO/Cobalt junctions

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 Publication date 2014
  fields Physics
and research's language is English




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We report on the fabrication and characterization of vertical spin-valve structures using a thick epitaxial MgO barrier as spacer layer and a graphene-passivated Ni film as bottom ferromagnetic electrode. The devices show robust and scalable tunnel magnetoresistance, with several changes of sign upon varying the applied bias voltage. These findings are explained by a model of phonon-assisted transport mechanisms that relies on the peculiarity of the band structure and spin density of states at the hybrid graphene|Ni interface.



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We demonstrate a voltage-controlled exchange bias effect in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions that is related to the interfacial Fe(Co)Ox formed between the CoFeB electrodes and the MgO barrier. The unique combination of interfacial antiferromagnetism, giant tunneling magnetoresistance, and sharp switching of the perpendicularly-magnetized CoFeB allows sensitive detection of the exchange bias. It is found that the exchange bias field can be isothermally controlled by magnetic fields at low temperatures. More importantly, the exchange bias can also be effectively manipulated by the electric field applied to the MgO barrier due to the voltage-controlled antiferromagnetic anisotropy in this system.
While the effects of lattice mismatch-induced strain, mechanical strain, as well as the intrinsic strain of thin films are sometimes detrimental, resulting in mechanical deformation and failure, strain can also be usefully harnessed for applications such as data storage, transistors, solar cells, and strain gauges, among other things. Here, we demonstrate that quantum transport across magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) can be significantly affected by the introduction of controllable mechanical strain, achieving an enhancement factor of ~2 in the experimental tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio. We further correlate this strain-enhanced TMR with coherent spin tunneling through the MgO barrier. Moreover, the strain-enhanced TMR is analyzed using non-equilibrium Greens function (NEGF) quantum transport calculations. Our results help elucidate the TMR mechanism at the atomic level and can provide a new way to enhance, as well as tune, the quantum properties in nanoscale materials and devices.
Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) are basic building blocks for devices such as magnetic random access memories (MRAMs). The relevance for modern computation of non-volatile high-frequency memories makes ac-transport measurements of MTJs crucial for exploring this regime. Here we demonstrate a frequency-mediated effect in which the tunnel magnetoimpedance reverses its sign in a classical Co/Al{_2}O{_3}/NiFe MTJ, whereas we only observe a gradual decrease of tunnel magnetophase. Such effects are explained by the capacitive coupling of a parallel resistor and capacitor in the equivalent circuit model of the MTJ. Furthermore, we report a positive tunnel magnetocapacitance effect, suggesting the presence of a spin-capacitance at the two ferromagnet/tunnel-barrier interfaces. Our results are important for understanding spin transport phenomena at the high frequency regime, in which the spin-polarized charge accumulation at the two interfaces plays a crucial role.
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