Motivated by observation of very high tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) in Fe-MgO-Fe magnetic tunnel junction devices, we propose a theoretical model for these devices based on a single-band tight-binding approximation. An effort is made to capture the band dispersions over the two dimensional transverse Brillouin zone. In the transport direction, spin dependent Hamiltonian is prescribed for Delta_1 and Delta_5 bands. Non-equilibrium Green's function formalism is then used to calculate transport. Features like voltage dependence of TMR are captured quantitatively within this simple model and the trends match well with the ones predicted by ab-initio methods and experiments.
Recently, it has been shown that magnetic tunnel junctions with thin MgO tunnel barriers exhibit extraordinarily high tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) values at room temperature1, 2. However, the physics of spin dependent tunneling through MgO barriers is only beginning to be unravelled. Using planar magnetic tunnel junctions in which ultra-thin layers of magnetic metals are deposited in the middle of a MgO tunnel barrier here we demonstrate that the TMR is strongly modified when these layers are discontinuous and composed of small pancake shaped nanodots. At low temperatures, in the Coulomb …
We studied the thermoelectric coefficients (Seebeck and thermal conductance)of FeCo|MgO|FeCo(001) magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) from first principles using a generalized Landauer-Büttiker formalism. FeCo|MgO|FeCo(001) MTJs usually yield smaller thermoelectric effects compared with epitaxial Fe|MgO|Fe(001) MTJs. The (magneto-) Seebeck effect is sensitive to the details of the FeCo$|$MgO interfaces. Interfacial oxygen vacancies (OVs) can enhance the thermoelectric effects in MTJs greatly. We also compute angular dependent Seebeck coefficients that provide more information about the transport …
We examine the spin torque (ST) response of magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with ultra-thin MgO tunnel barrier layers to investigate the relationship between the spin-transfer torque and the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) under finite bias. We find that the spin torque per unit current exerted on the free layer decreases by less than 10% over a bias range where the TMR decreases by over 40%. We examine the implications of this result for various spin-polarized tunneling models and find that it is consistent with magnetic-state-dependent effective tunnel decay lengths.
We study the tunneling magneto thermopower and tunneling magneto thermocurrent of CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ). The devices show a clear change of the thermoelectric properties upon reversal of the magnetisation of the CoFeB layers from parallel to the antiparallel orientation. When switching from parallel to antiparallel the thermopower increases by up to 55% where as the thermocurrent drops by 45%. These observations can be well explained by the Onsager relations taking into account the tunneling magneto resistance of the MTJ. These findings contrast previous studies on Al…
We study the effect of strain on magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) induced by a diamond like carbon (DLC) film. The junction resistance as well as the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) reduces with the DLC film. Non-equilibrium Green's function quantum transport calculations show that the application of biaxial strain increases the conductance for both the parallel and anti-parallel configurations. However, the conductance for the minority channel and for the anti-parallel configuration is significantly more sensitive to strain, which drastically increases transmission through a MgO tunnel barrier,…
Alloying Fe electrodes with V, through reduced FeV/MgO interface mismatch in epitaxial magnetic tunnel junctions with MgO barriers, notably suppresses both nonmagnetic (parallel) and magnetic (antiparallel) state 1/f noise and enhances tunnelling magnetoresistance (TMR). A comparative study of the room temperature electron transport and low frequency noise in Fe1-xVx/MgO/Fe and Fe/MgO/Fe1-xVx MTJs with 0 <= x <= 0.25 reveals that V doping of the bottom electrode for x < 0.1 reduces in nearly 2 orders of magnitude the normalized nonmagnetic and magnetic 1/f noise. We attribute the enhanced TMR …
We have investigated electrical spin injection from Ni81Fe19 into an InAs quantum well through MgO tunneling barrier for potential application to InAs-based spin field effect transistor. Injected spin polarized current were detected in both nonlocal and local spin valve set-ups and the spin diffusion length and spin injection efficiency were analyzed. The spin diffusion length was estimated to be 1.6 μm in nonlocal set-up at 1.4 K. The spin polarization of Ni81Fe19/MgO/InAs as-deposited sample was relealed to be 6.9 %, while increased spin polarization of 8.9 % was observed by additional therm…
We investigate the spin-dependent Seebeck coefficient and the tunneling magneto thermopower of CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) in the presence of thermal gradients across the MTJ. Thermal gradients are generated by an electric heater on top of the nanopillars. The thermo power voltage across the MTJ is found to scale linearly with the heating power and reveals similar field dependence as the tunnel magnetoresistance. The amplitude of the thermal gradient is derived from calibration measurements in combination with finite element simulations of the heat flux. Based on this, larg…
Magnetocrystalline anisotropy at Heusler alloy$|$MgO interfaces have been studied using first principles calculations. It is found that Co terminated Co$_{2}$FeAl$|$MgO interfaces show perpendicular magnetic anisotropy up to 1.31 mJ/m$^2$, while those with FeAl termination exhibit in-plane magnetic anisotropy. Atomic layer resolved analysis indicates that the origin of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in Co$_{2}$FeAl$|$MgO interfaces can be attributed to the out-of-plane orbital contributions of interfacial Co atoms. At the same time, Co$_{2}$MnGe and Co$_{2}$MnSi interfaced with MgO tend to …
The capacitance of MgO based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) has been observed to be magnetic field dependent. We propose an equivalent circuit for the MTJs with a parallel-leaky capacitance (Cl) across the series combination of geometric and interfacial capacitance. The analysis of junctions with different tunneling magnetoresistance values suggests higher Cl for low TMR junctions. Using Cole-Cole plots the capacitive nature of MTJs is manifested. Fitting with Maxwell-Wagner capacitance model validates the RC parallel network model for MTJs and the extracted field dependent parameters match …
The influence of insertion of an ultra-thin NiO layer between the MgO barrier and ferromagnetic electrode in magnetic tunnel junctions has been investigated by measuring the tunneling magnetoresistance and the X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). The magnetoresistance shows a high asymmetry with respect to bias voltage, giving rise to a negative value of -16% at 2.8 K. We attribute this to the formation of non-collinear spin structures in the NiO layer as observed by XMCD. The magnetic moments of the interface Ni atoms tilt from the easy axis due to exchange interaction and the tilting an…
We present a computationally efficient transferable single-band tight-binding model (SBTB) for spin polarized transport in heterostructures with an effort to capture the band structure effects. As an example, we apply it to study transport through Fe-MgO-Fe(100) magnetic tunnel junction devices. We propose a novel approach to extract suitable tight-binding parameters for a material by using the energy resolved transmission as the benchmark, which inherently has the bandstructure effects over the two dimensional transverse Brillouin zone. The SBTB parameters for each of the four symmetry bands …
Spin-transfer ferromagnetic resonance (ST-FMR) in symmetric magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with a varied thickness of the MgO tunnel barrier (0.75 nm < $t_{MgO}$ < 1.05 nm) is studied using the spin-torque diode effect. The application of an RF current into nanosized MTJs generates a DC mixing voltage across the device when the frequency is in resonance with the resistance oscillations arising from the spin transfer torque. Magnetization precession in the free and reference layers of the MTJs is analyzed by comparing ST-FMR signals with macrospin and micromagnetic simulations. From ST-FMR sp…
In this work we have analysed the deterimental effect on conductance caused by diffusion of hydrogen atoms in interstitial voids during fabrication process of magnesium oxide barrier of an Fe MgO Fe magnetic tunnel junction, using first principle calculations. This diffusion of hydrogen atoms in interstitial voids in barrier disturbs a certain kind of symmetry possessed by magnesium oxide often termed as delta 1 state symmetry. Distortion in delta 1 state symmetry tempers the condutance through the magnetic tunnel junction specially in parallel configuration, which in turn reduces the Tunnelli…
We investigate spin relaxation in graphene by systematically comparing the roles of spin absorption, other contact-induced effects (e.g. fringe fields, etc.), and bulk spin relaxation for graphene spin valves with MgO barriers, Al2O3 barriers, and transparent contacts. We obtain effective spin lifetimes by fitting the Hanle spin precession data with two models that include or exclude the effect of spin absorption. Results indicate that additional contact-induced spin relaxation other than spin absorption dominates the contact effect. For tunneling contacts, we find reasonable agreement between…
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) ra…
The bias dependence of the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) of Fe/MgO/Fe tunnel junctions is investigated theoretically with a fully self-consistent scheme that combines the non-equilibrium Green's functions method with density functional theory. At voltages smaller than 20 mVolt the I-V characteristics and the TMR are dominated by resonant transport through narrow interface states in the minority spin-band. In the parallel configuration this contribution is quenched by a voltage comparable to the energy width of the interface state, whereas it persists at all voltages in the anti-parallel confi…
We report on room temperature low frequency noise due to magnetic inhomogeneities/domain walls (MI/DWs) in elliptic submicron FeCoB/MgO/FeCoB magnetic tunnel junctions with an area between 0.0245 and 0.0675μm2. In the smaller area junctions we found an unexpected random telegraph noise (RTN1), deeply in the parallel state, possibly due to stray field induced MI/DWs in the hard layer. The second noise source (RTN2) is observed in the antiparallel state for the largest junctions. Strong asymmetry of RTN2 and of related resistance steps with current indicate spin torque acting on the MI/DWs in th…
The tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) effect observed in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) is commonly used in many spintronic applications because the effect can easily convert from local magnetic states to electric signals in a wide range of device resistances. In this study, we demonstrated TMR ratios of up to 631% at room temperature (RT), which is two or more times larger than those used currently for magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) devices, using CoFe/MgO/CoFe(001) epitaxial MTJs. The TMR ratio increased up to 1143% at 10 K, which corresponds to an effective tunneling spin polar…
The exchange bias effect is commonly used to shift the coercive field of a ferromagnet. This technique is crucial for the use of magnetic tunnel junctions as logic or memory devices. Therefore, an independent switching of the two ferromagnetic electrodes is necessary to guarantee a reliable readout. Here, we demonstrate that the intrinsic exchange bias effect of Ni-Mn-Sn can be used to apply a unidirectional anisotropy to magnetic tunnel junctions. For this, we use epitaxial Ni-Mn-Sn films as pinning layers for microfabricated CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions. We compare the exchange …
We theoretically investigate the Tunneling Anisotropic Magneto-Seebeck effect in a realistically-modeled CoPt|MgO|Pt tunnel junction using coherent transport calculations. For comparison we study the tunneling magneto-Seebeck effect in CoPt|MgO|CoPt as well. We find that the magneto-Seebeck ratio of CoPt|MgO|Pt exceeds that of CoPt|MgO|CoPt for small barrier thicknesses, reaching 175% at room temperature. This result provides a sharp contrast to the magnetoresistance, which behaves oppositely for all barrier thicknesses and differs by one order of magnitude between devices. Here the magnetores…
Magnetoelectric coupling between magnetic and electric dipoles is one of the cornerstones of modern physics towards developing the most energy-efficient magnetic data storage. Conventionally, magnetoelectric coupling is achieved in single-phase multiferroics or in magnetoelectric composite nanostructures consisting of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric/piezoelectric materials. Here, we demonstrate an electric-field-induced strain-mediated magnetoelectric effect in ultrathin CoFeB/MgO magnetic tunnel junction employing non-piezoelectric material, which is a vitally important structure for spintron…
Strength of the the symmetry spin filtering effect (as defined by the asymptotic behavior of the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) at large barrier thicknesses induced by this effect) is studied for the Fe/MgO/Fe magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ). Based on the analysis of the band structure of bulk Fe and complex band structure of MgO we predict \emph{native} for the symmetry spin filtering effect linear increase of the TMR in Fe/MgO/Fe MTJ with increasing number of MgO layers, $N$. \emph{Ab initio} calculations of transmission functions performed for the Fe/MgO/Fe MTJ confirm our theoretical pr…
We investigate bias voltage effects on the spin-dependent transport properties of Fe/MgAl${}_2$O${}_4$/Fe(001) magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJs) by comparing them with those of Fe/MgO/Fe(001) MTJs. By means of the nonequilibrium Green's function method and the density functional theory, we calculate bias voltage dependences of magnetoresistance (MR) ratios in both the MTJs. We find that in both the MTJs, the MR ratio decreases as the bias voltage increases and finally vanishes at a critical bias voltage $V_{\rm c}$. We also find that the critical bias voltage $V_{\rm c}$ of the MgAl${}_2$O${…
Cryogenic-temperature Grain-to-grain Epitaxial Growth of High-quality Ultrathin CoFe Layer on MgO Tunnel Barrier for High-performance Magnetic Tunnel Junctions
The radio-frequency (RF) voltage amplification property of a tunnel magnetoresistance device driven by an RF external-magnetic-field-induced ferromagnetic resonance was studied. The proposed device consists of a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) and an electrically isolated coplanar waveguide. The input RF voltage applied to the waveguide can excite the resonant dynamics in the free layer magnetization, leading to the generation of an output RF voltage under a DC bias current. The dependences of the RF voltage gain on the static external magnetic field strength and angle were systematically inves…
We report on first-principles spin-polarised quantum transport calculations (from NEGF+DFT) in MgO-spaced magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) based on two different Mn-based Heusler ferrimagnetic metals, namely Mn$_3$Al and Mn$_3$Ga in their tetragonal DO$_{22}$ phase. The former is a fully compensated half-metallic ferrimagnet, while the latter is a low-moment high-spin-polarisation ferrimagnet, both with a small lattice mismatch from MgO. In identical symmetric and asymmetric interface reconstructions across a 3-monolayer thick MgO barrier for both ferrimagets, the linear response (low-voltage)…
Spin-resolved electron symmetry filtering is a key mechanism behind giant tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) in Fe/MgO/Fe and similar magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), providing room temperature functionality in modern spin electronics. However, the core process of the electron symmetry filtering breaks down under applied bias, dramatically reducing the TMR above 0.5 V. This strongly hampers the application range of MTJs. To circumvent the problem, resonant tunneling between ferromagnetic electrodes through quantum well states in thin layers has been used so far. This mechanism, however, is mai…
Tunneling junctions containing no ferromagnetic elements have been fabricated and we show that distinct resistance states can be set by field cooling the devices from above the Néel along different orientations. Variations of the resistance up to 10% are found upon field cooling in applied fields of 2T, in-plane or out of plane. Below TN, we found that the metastable states are insensitive to magnetic fields thus constituting a memory element robust against external magnetic fields. Our work provides the demonstration of an electrically readable magnetic memory device, which contains no ferrom…
Magnetic tunnel junctions with perpendicular anisotropy form the basis of the spin-transfer torque magnetic random-access memory (STT-MRAM), which is non-volatile, fast, dense, and has quasi-infinite write endurance and low power consumption. Based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we propose an alternative design of magnetic tunnel junctions comprising Fe(n)Co(m)Fe(n)/MgO storage layers with greatly enhanced perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) up to several mJ/m2, leveraging the interfacial perpendicular anisotropy of Fe/MgO along with a stress-induced bulk PMA discovered w…
The Fe/MgO magnetic tunnel junction is a classic spintronic system, with current importance technologically, and interest for future innovation. The key magnetic properties are linked directly to the structure of hard-to-access buried interfaces, and the Fe and MgO components near the surface are unstable when exposed to air, making a deeper probing, non-destructive, in-situ measurement ideal for this system. We have thus applied hard x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (HXPS) and standing-wave (SW) HXPS in the few keV energy range to probe the structure of an epitaxially-grown MgO/Fe superlattic…
Ab initio study of magnetoresistance effect in $\mathrm{Mn_{3}Sn}/\mathrm{MgO}/\mathrm{Mn_{3}Sn}$ antiferromagnetic tunnel junction
University of Tokyo（东京大学）；JSR Corporation（JSR公司）；Kyoto University（京都大学）；Johns Hopkins University（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学）；Tokyo Metropolitan University（东京都立大学）；Tohoku University（东北大学）；RIKEN（理化学研究所）
Thermal-magnetic noise at ferromagnetic resonance (T-FMR) can be used to measure magnetic perpendicular anisotropy of nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). For this purpose, T-FMR measurements were conducted with an external magnetic field up to 14 kOe applied perpendicular to the film surface of MgO-based MTJs under a dc bias. The observed frequency-field relationship suggests that a 20 A CoFeB free layer has an effective demagnetization field much smaller than the intrinsic bulk value of CoFeB, with 4PiMeff = (6.1 +/- 0.3) kOe. This value is consistent with the saturation field obtaine…
We investigate the thermoelectric properties of Fe/MgO/Fe(001) magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) by means of the linear-response theory combined with a first-principles-based Landauer-Büttiker approach. We find that the Seebeck coefficient of Fe/MgO/Fe(001) MTJs strongly depends on the barrier thickness and the tetragonal distortion. A compressive tetragonal distortion of the in-plane lattice parameter in the MTJs provides interface resonant states just above the Fermi energy. This causes resonant tunneling in the MTJs and significantly enhances the Seebeck coefficient when the thickness of the…
Using first-principles calculations, we elucidate microscopic mechanisms of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA)in Fe/MgO magnetic tunnel junctions through evaluation of orbital and layer resolved contributions into the total anisotropy value. It is demonstrated that the origin of the large PMA values is far beyond simply considering the hybridization between Fe-3d$ and O-2p orbitals at the interface between the metal and the insulator. On-site projected analysis show that the anisotropy energy is not localized at the interface but it rather propagates into the bulk showing an attenuating o…
We theoretically study the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) effect in (111)-oriented junctions Co/MgO/Co(111) and Ni/MgO/Ni(111). The Co-based junction is shown to have a TMR ratio over 2000$\%$, which is one order higher than that of the Ni-based one. The high TMR ratio is attributed to the interfacial resonance effect: The interfacial $d$-$p$ antibonding states are formed close to the Fermi level in the majority-spin channel and these states in both interfaces resonate with each other. This differs essentially from the conventional coherent tunneling mechanism of high TMR ratios in Fe(Co)/MgO/…
We report on room temperature 1/f noise in fully epitaxial Fe(45nm)/MgO(2.6nm)/Fe(10nm) magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with and without carbon doping of the Fe/MgO bottom interface. We have found that the normalized noise (Hooge factor) asymmetry between parallel and antiparallel states may strongly depend on the applied bias and its polarity. Both types of MTJs exhibit record low Hooge factors being at least one order of magnitude smaller than previously reported.
Low temperature (10K) high voltage bias dynamic conductivity (up to 2.7V) and shot noise (up to 1V) were studied in epitaxial Fe(100)/Fe-C/MgO(100)/Fe(100) magnetic tunnel junctions, as a function of the magnetic state. The junctions show large tunnel magnetoresistance (185% at 300K and 330% at 4K). Multiple sign inversion of the magnetoresistance is observed for bias polarity when the electrons scan the electronic structure of the bottom Fe-C interface. The shot-noise shows a Poissonian character. This demonstrates a pure spin dependent direct tunneling mechanism and validates the high struct…
We measured the shot noise in the CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB-based magnetic tunneling junctions with a high tunneling magnetoresistance ratio (over 200% at 3 K). Although the Fano factor in the anti-parallel configuration is close to unity, it is observed to be typically 0.91\pm0.01 in the parallel configuration. It indicates the sub-Poissonian process of the electron tunneling in the parallel configuration due to the relevance of the spin-dependent coherent transport in the low bias regime.
Here, we present an analytical and numerical model describing the magnetization dynamics in MgO-based spin-torque nano-oscillators with an in-plane magnetized polarizer and an out-of-plane free layer. We introduce the spin-transfer torque asymmetry by considering the cosine angular dependence of the resistance between the two magnetic layers in the stack. For the analytical solution, dynamics are determined by assuming a circular precession trajectory around the direction perpendicular to the plane, as set by the effective field, and calculating the energy integral over a single precession per…
We demonstrate a spin diode consisting of a semiconductor free nano-scale Fe/MgO-based double tunnel junction. The device exhibits a near perfect spin-valve effect combined with a strong diode effect. The mechanism consistent with our data is resonant tunneling through discrete states in the middle ferromagnetic layer sandwiched by tunnel barriers of different spin-dependent transparency. The observed magneto-resistance is record high, ~4000%, essentially making the structure an on/off spin-switch. This, combined with the strong diode effect, ~100, offers a new device that should be promising …
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.
We consider two intrinsic sources of noise in ultra-sensitive magnetic field sensors based on MgO magnetic tunnel junctions, coming both from $^{25}$Mg nuclear spins ($I=5/2$, 10% natural abundance), and S=1 Mg-vacancies. While nuclear spins induce noise peaked in the MHz frequency range, the vacancies noise peaks in the GHz range. We find that the nuclear noise in submicron devices has a similar magnitude than the $1/f$ noise, while the vacancy-induced noise dominates in the GHz range. Interestingly, the noise spectrum under a finite magnetic field gradient may provide spatial information abo…
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 elec…
Using first-principles calculations, we investigated the impact of chromium (Cr) and vanadium (V) impurities on the magnetic anisotropy and spin polarization in Fe/MgO magnetic tunnel junctions. It is demonstrated using layer resolved anisotropy calculation technique, that while the impurity near the interface has a drastic effect in decreasing the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), its position within the bulk allows maintaining high surface PMA. Moreover, the effective magnetic anisotropy has a strong tendency to go from in-plane to out-of-plane character as a function of Cr and V conc…
Ultrathin MgO films on Mo(100) with a thickness up to 12 ML are studied by scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy at room temperature. The spatial variation of the work function within the MgO film is mapped by field emission resonance states (Gundlach oscillations) using dz/dU spectroscopy. We found circular spots with significantly reduced work function (DeltaPhi=0.6 eV), which are assigned to charged defects within the MgO film. On top of the MgO films, small Co cluster are deposited with an average contact area of 4 nm^2. These islands exhibit Coulomb oscillations in dI/dU spectra …
The quantum mechanical tunnelling process conserves the quantum properties of the particle considered. As applied to solid-state tunnelling (SST), this physical law was verified, within the field of spintronics, regarding the electron spin in early experiments across Ge tunnel barriers, and in the 90s across Al2O3 barriers. The conservation of the quantum parameter of orbital occupancy, as grouped into electronic symmetries, was observed in the '00s across MgO barriers, followed by SrTiO3 (STO). Barrier defects, such as oxygen vacancies, partly conserve this electronic symmetry. In the solid-s…
We report the thermal spin injection and accumulation in crystalline CoFe/MgO tunnel contacts to n-type Si through Seebeck spin tunneling (SST). With the Joule heating (laser heating) of Si (CoFe), the thermally induced spin accumulation is detected by means of the Hanle effect for both polarities of the temperature gradient across the tunnel contact. The magnitude of the thermal spin signal scales linearly with the heating power and its sign is reversed as we invert the temperature gradient, demonstrating the major features of SST and thermal spin accumulation. We observe that, for the Si (Co…
In this paper we present theoretical studies of spin dependent transport in Fe/Cr/MgO/Fe tunnel junctions with non-collinear alignment of magnetizations of metallic layers comprising these MTJs. Calculations are performed with use of non-equilibrium Green function technique in the framework of Keldysh formalism. WKB approximation is used for wave and Green functions in the trapezoidal barrier region under applied voltage. Electronic structure of ferromagnetic electrodes is modeled with two bands model, i.e. with majority s-electrons and minority d-holes. Furthermore, we introduce s-d hybridiza…
The low-frequency and shot noises in spin-valve CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunneling junctions were studied at low temperature. The measured 1/f noise around the magnetic hysteresis loops of the free layer indicates that the main origin of the 1/f noise is the magnetic fluctuation, which is discussed in terms of a fluctuation-dissipation relation. Random telegraph noise (RTN) is observed to be symmetrically enhanced in the hysteresis loop with regard to the two magnetic configurations. We found that this enhancement is caused by the fluctuation between two magnetic states in the free layer. Alth…
Thin electrodes of magnetic tunnel junctions can show superparamagnetism at surprisingly low temperature. We analysed their thermally induced switching for varying temperature, magnetic and electric field. Although the dwell times follow an Arrhenius law, they are orders of magnitude too small compared to a model of single domain activation. Including entropic effects removes this inconsistency and leads to a magnetic activation volume much smaller than that of the electrode. Comparing data for varying barrier thickness then allows to separate the impact of Zeman energy, spin-transfer-torque a…
We report on room temperature magnetoresistance and low frequency noise in sub-100nm elliptic CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions with ultrathin (0.9nm) barriers. For magnetic fields applied along the hard axis, we observe current induced magnetization switching between the antiparallel and parallel alignments at DC current densities as low as 4*106A/cm2. We attribute the low value of the critical current to the influence of localized reductions in the tunnel barrier, which affects the current distribution. The analysis of random telegraph noise, which appears in the field interval near …
In this contribution, we calculate in a self-consistent way the ballistic transmission as a function of energy of one Fe/MgO (001) single-barrier and one double-barrier tunnel junction, relating them to their electronic structure. The transmission spectra of each kind of junction is calculated at different applied bias voltages. We focus on the impact that bias has on the resonant tunneling mediated by surface and quantum well states. The calculations are done in the coherent regime, using a combination of density functional theory and non-equilibrium Green's functions, as implemented in the {…
Strain-mediated voltage control of magnetization in piezoelectric/ferromagnetic systems is a promising mechanism to implement energy-efficient spintronic memory devices. Here, we demonstrate giant voltage manipulation of MgO magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) on a Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)0.7Ti0.3O3 (PMN-PT) piezoelectric substrate with (001) orientation. It is found that the magnetic easy axis, switching field, and the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) of the MTJ can be efficiently controlled by strain from the underlying piezoelectric layer upon the application of a gate voltage. Repeatable voltage controlle…
We investigated the low temperature performance of CoFeB/MgO based perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions (pMTJs) by characterizing their quasi-static switching voltage, high speed pulse write error rate and endurance down to 9 K. pMTJ devices exhibited high magnetoresistance (>120%) and reliable (error rate<10-4) bi-directional switching with 2 to 200 ns voltage pulses. The endurance of the devices at 9 K surpassed that at 300 K by three orders of magnitude under the same write conditions, functioning for more than 10^12 cycles with 10 ns write pulses. The critical switching voltage at 9 K w…
Experimental studies of FeCoB/MgO/FeCoB tunnel junctions indicate that boron diffuses into MgO during rf-sputtering and forms polycrystalline Mg-B-O regions. These tunnel junctions provide high tunneling magnetoresistance values and low RA products. However the crystal structure of the Mg-B-O region remains unknown. Using density functional techniques, I examine three potential Mg(B) oxides including Mg$_{2}$B$_{2}$O$_{5}$ (monoclinic and triclinic) and the orthorhombic mineral Kotoite (Mg$_3$B$_2$O$_6$). Kotoite is the best candidate for formation in magnetic tunnel junctions. The (100) surfa…
