Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) have been identified as promising candidates for the development of high-performance, ultra-low field magnetometers due to their high sensitivity, low cost, low power consumption, and small size. However, 1/f noise is often quite large at low frequencies and inevitably becomes one of the most difficult issues in developing a magnetic field sensor with ultrahigh sensitivity. Low-frequency 1/f noise can have both electric and magnetic origins, and it is a result of complex non-linear interactions between many degrees of freedom inside a sensor. Therefore, a reduction of the 1/f noise can be expected for the magnetic sensor with very small dimensions. Here, the dependence of the 1/f noise on voltage and strong hard-axis bias field in deep submicrometer-sized MgO-based MTJs is investigated with various junction sizes. The noise spectra were measured by using a home-built low-frequency noise measurement setup with maximum frequency up to 30 kHz. We find that the noise spectral power density is 1/f-like at low frequencies. The experimental results suggest a relative reduction of 1/f noise with respect to the intrinsic thermal noise in small-sized MTJs. The results may open a new approach for reducing the 1/f noise level in MTJ nanosensors.

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Alternating gradient force magnetometry and Brillouin light scattering (BLS) experiments were exploited to investigate the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) localized at the CoFeB–MgO interface, both in Ta/CoFeB/MgO heterostructures (bottom samples) and in the inverted ones MgO/CoFeB/Ta (top samples). Thermal treatment was found to induce a marked increase of the PMA with respect to the as grown state. Using linear spin wave theory, an analysis of the spin wave frequencies was performed which allowed to estimate the thickness dependence of the PMA in the single CoFeB film. Magnetic tunnel junctions with the Ta/CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB/Ta structure were also studied by BLS. The analysis of the experimental results, performed via the linear spin wave theory, revealed that there is an antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling between the free and the fixed CoFeB layers which increases after the annealing procedure.