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Register a new userRoom temperature tunneling magnetoresistance in magnetite based junctions: Influence of tunneling barrier
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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.
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Recently, magnetic tunnel junctions with perpendicular magnetized electrodes combined with exchange bias films have attracted large interest. In this paper we examine the tunnel magnetoresistance of Ta/Pd/IrMn/Co-Fe/Ta/Co-Fe-B/MgO/Co-Fe-B/capping/Pd magnetic tunnel junctions in dependence on the capping layer, i.e., Hf or Ta. In these stacks perpendicular exchange bias fields of -500,Oe along with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy are combined. A tunnel magnetoresistance of $(47.2pm 1.4)%$ for the Hf-capped sample was determined compared to the Ta one $(42.6pm 0.7)%$ at room temperature. Interestingly, this observation is correlated to the higher boron absorption of Hf compared to Ta which prevents the suppression of $Delta_{textrm{1}}$ channel and leads to higher tunnel magnetoresistance values. Furthermore, the temperature dependent coercivities of the soft electrodes of both samples are mainly described by the Stoner-Wohlfarth model including thermal fluctuations. Slight deviations at low temperatures can be attributed to a torque on the soft electrode that is generated by the pinned magnetic layer system.
We calculate the conductances and the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) of double magnetic tunnel junctions, taking as a model example junctions composed of Fe/ZnSe/Fe/ZnSe/Fe (001). The calculations are done as a function of the gate voltage applied to the in-between Fe layer slab. We find that the application of a gate voltage to the in-between Fe slab strongly affects the junctions TMR due to the tuning or untuning of conductance resonances mediated by quantum well states. The gate voltage allows a significant enhancement of the TMR, in a more controllable way than by changing the thickness of the in-between Fe slab. This effect may be useful in the design of future spintronic devices based on the TMR effect, requiring large and controllable TMR values.
Quantum-well (QW) devices have been extensively investigated in semiconductor structures. More recently, spin-polarized QWs were integrated into magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). In this work, we demonstrate the spin-based control of the quantized states in iron $3d$-band QWs, as observed in experiments and theoretical calculations. We find that the magnetization rotation in the Fe QWs significantly shifts the QW quantization levels, which modulate the resonant-tunneling current in MTJs, resulting in a tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance (TAMR) effect of QWs. This QW-TAMR effect is sizable compared to other types of TAMR effect, and it is present above the room-temperature. In a QW MTJ of Cr/Fe/MgAl$_2$O$_4$/top electrode, where the QW is formed by a mismatch between Cr and Fe in the $d$ band with $Delta_1$ symmetry, a QW-TAMR ratio of up to 5.4 % was observed at 5 K, which persisted to 1.2 % even at 380K. The magnetic control of QW transport can open new applications for spin-coupled optoelectronic devices, ultra-thin sensors, and memories.
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.
Tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance (TAMR) effect, discovered recently in (Ga,Mn)As ferromagnetic semiconductors, arises from spin-orbit coupling and reflects the dependence of the tunneling density of states in a ferromagnetic layer on orientation of the magnetic moment. Based on ab initio relativistic calculations of the anisotropy in the density of states we predict sizable TAMR effects in room-temperature metallic ferromagnets. This opens prospect for new spintronic devices with a simpler geometry as these do not require antiferromagnetically coupled contacts on either side of the tunnel junction. We focus on several model systems ranging from simple hcp-Co to more complex ferromagnetic structures with enhanced spin-orbit coupling, namely bulk and thin film L1$_0$-CoPt ordered alloys and a monatomic-Co chain at a Pt surface step edge. Reliability of the predicted density of states anisotropies is confirmed by comparing quantitatively our ab initio results for the magnetocrystalline anisotropies in these systems with experimental data.
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