Epitaxial Fe/magnesium gallium spinel oxide (MgGa2O4)/Fe(001) magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) were fabricated by magnetron sputtering. Tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio up to 121% at room temperature (196% at 4 K) was observed, suggesting a TMR enhancement by the coherent tunneling effect in the MgGa2O4 barrier. The MgGa2O4 layer had a spinel structure and it showed good lattice matching with the Fe layers owing to slight tetragonal lattice distortion of MgGa2O4. Barrier thickness dependence of the tunneling resistance and current-voltage characteristics revealed that the barrier height of the MgGa2O4 barrier is much lower than that in an MgAl2O4 barrier. This study demonstrates the potential of Ga-based spinel oxides for MTJ barriers having a large TMR ratio at a low resistance area product.
The authors studied an effect of ferromagnetic (Co20Fe60B20 or Fe) layer insertion on tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) properties of MgO-barrier magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with CoFe/Pd multilayer electrodes. TMR ratio in MTJs with CoFeB/MgO/Fe stack reached 67% at an-nealing temperature (Ta) of 200 degree C and then decreased rapidly at Ta over 250 degree C. The degradation of the TMR ratio may be related to crystallization of CoFe(B) into fcc(111) or bcc(011) texture result-ing from diffusion of B into Pd layers. MTJs which were in-situ annealed at 350oC just after depo-siting bottom CoFe/Pd multilayer showed TMR ratio of 78% by post annealing at Ta =200 degree C.
Magnetite (Fe3O4) based tunnel junctions with turret/mesa structure have been investigated for different barrier materials (SrTiO3, NdGaO3, MgO, SiO2, and Al2O(3-x)). Junctions with a Ni counter electrode and an aluminium oxide barrier showed reproducibly a tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) effect at room temperature of up to 5% with almost ideal switching behavior. This number only partially reflects the intrinsic high spin polarization of Fe3O4. It is considerably decreased due to an additional series resistance within the junction. Only SiO2 and Al2O(3-x) barriers provide magnetically decoupled electrodes as necessary for sharp switching. The observed decrease of the TMR effect as a function of increasing temperature is due to a decrease in spin polarization and an increase in spin-scattering in the barrier. Among the oxide half-metals magnetite has the potential to enhance the performance of TMR based devices.
We fabricated high quality Nb/Al_2O_3/Ni_{0.6}Cu_{0.4}/Nb superconductor-insulator-ferromagnet-superconductor Josephson tunnel junctions. Using a ferromagnetic layer with a step-like thickness, we obtain a 0-pi junction, with equal lengths and critical currents of 0 and pi parts. The ground state of our 330 microns (1.3 lambda_J) long junction corresponds to a spontaneous vortex of supercurrent pinned at the 0-pi step and carrying ~6.7% of the magnetic flux quantum Phi_0. The dependence of the critical current on the applied magnetic field shows a clear minimum in the vicinity of zero field.
We theoretically study the recently observed tunnel-barrier-enhanced dc voltage signals generated by magnetization precession in magnetic tunnel junctions. While the spin pumping is suppressed by the high tunneling impedance, two complimentary processes are predicted to result in a sizable voltage generation in ferromagnet (F)|insulator (I)|normal-metal (N) and F|I|F junctions, with one ferromagnet being resonantly excited. Magnetic dynamics in F|I|F systems induces a robust charge pumping, translating into voltage in open circuits. In addition, dynamics in a single ferromagnetic layer develops longitudinal spin accumulation inside the ferromagnet. A tunnel barrier then acts as a nonintrusive probe that converts the spin accumulation into a measurable voltage. Neither of the proposed mechanisms suffers from spin relaxation, which is typically fast on the scale of the exponentially slow tunneling rates. The longitudinal spin-accumulation buildup, however, is very sensitive to the phenomenological ingredients of the spin-relaxation picture.
We investigated the effect of using a synthetic ferrimagnetic (SyF) free layer in MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) on current-induced magnetization switching (CIMS), particularly for application to spin-transfer torque random access memory (SPRAM). The employed SyF free layer had a Co40Fe40B20/ Ru/ Co40Fe40B20 and Co20Fe60B20/Ru/Co20Fe60B20 structures, and the MTJs(100x(150-300) nm^2) were annealed at 300oC. The use of SyF free layer resulted in low intrinsic critical current density (Jc0) without degrading the thermal-stability factor (E/kBT, where E, kB, and T are the energy potential, the Boltzmann constant, and temperature,respectively). When the two CoFeB layers of a strongly antiferromagnetically coupled SyF free layer had the same thickness, Jc0 was reduced to 2-4x10^6 A/cm^2. This low Jc0 may be due to the decreased effective volume under the large spin accumulation at the CoFeB/Ru. The E/kBT was over 60, resulting in a retention time of over ten years and suppression of the write current dispersion for SPRAM. The use of the SyF free layer also resulted in a bistable (parallel/antiparallel) magnetization configuration at zero field, enabling the realization of CIMS without the need to apply external fields to compensate for the offset field.