Ferromagnetic tunnel junctions with plasma-oxidized Al barriers and their annealing effects

Abstract

Articles you may be interested inEffect of oxidation and annealing on tunnel barrier structure and composition in IrMn / CoFe / TiO x / CoFe magnetic tunnel junctions Effect of microstructure on the magnetoresistive properties of NiFe/Co(CoFe)/Al(Ta)-oxide/Co(CoFe) tunnel junctions

Characterization of epitaxial growth of Fe(110) on (11−20) sapphire substrates driven by Mo(110) seed layers

“…Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) have attracted increasing interest in recent years [3±6] for their applications in magnetic ®eld sensors [7,8] and non-volatile magnetic random access memory (MRAM) [5,9,10]. Strong eort has been focused on the fabrication of junctions with reproducible characteristics and signi®-cant changes in the magnetoresistance at room temperature [3,5].…”

Preparation, structure, and electronic properties ofFe3O4films on theFonin1, Dedkov2, Mayer3 et al. 2003Phys. Rev. B251210View full textAdd to dashboardCite

“…Spin-dependent electron transport phenomena in magnetic tunnel junctions ͑MTJ's͒ make these multilayers attractive for possible applications as magnetic field sensors 5,6 and nonvolatile magnetic random access memory ͑MRAM͒ devices. 4,7,8 According to Jullière's model, 9 the TMR of ferromagnet/ insulator/ferromagnet tunnel junctions depends on the spin polarization of the ferromagnetic electrodes used.…”

Determination of the thickness of Al2O3 barriers in magnetic tunnel junctions

“…11,12 It is important in the optimization of TMR to understand the oxidation process and in particular how to oxidize the entire Al layer and none of the ferromagnet. 13,14 We have measured the thickness of the insulating Al 2 O 3 barriers, with varying oxidation times, using grazing incidence x-ray techniques and compared results gained from fitting current density-voltage (I -V) curves to an electron tunneling model. It has already been noted that the ''effective'' or ''characteristic'' thickness found with this approach differs greatly from more direct structural characteristic methods such as high-resolution electron microscopy.…”