Spin transfer switching and spin polarization in magnetic tunnel junctions with MgO and AlOx barriers

By Z. Diao, Dmytro Apalkov, M. Pakala, A. Panchula, Y. Huai. 2005

203 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present spin transfer switching results for MgO based magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJs) with large tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio of up to 150% and low intrinsic switching current density of 2–3×106A∕cm2. The switching data are compared to those obtained on similar MTJ nanostructures with AlOx barrier. It is observed that the switching current density for MgO based MTJs is 3 to 4 times smaller than that for AlOx based MTJs, and that can be attributed to higher tunneling spin polarization (TSP) in MgO based MTJs. In addition, we report a qualitative study of TSP for a set of samples, ranging from 0.22 for AlOx to 0.46 for MgO based MTJs, and that shows the TSP (at finite bias) responsible for the current-driven magnetization switching is suppressed as compared to zero-bias tunneling spin polarization determined from TMR.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/844e0dfb5f799e1e84111fd822f04f60c7034fe4

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

  1. T. Kishi
  2. H. Yoda
  3. T. Nagase
  4. M. Yoshikawa
  5. E. Kitagawa
  6. K. Nishiyama
  7. T. Daibou
  8. M. Nagamine

Citations in the corpus