Enhanced tunneling magnetoresistance and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in Mo/CoFeB/MgO magnetic tunnel junctions

被引：87

作者：

Almasi, H. ^{[1
]}

Hickey, D. Reifsnyder ^{[2
]}

Newhouse-Illige, T. ^{[1
]}

Xu, M. ^{[1
]}

Rosales, M. R. ^{[1
]}

Nahar, S. ^{[3
]}

Held, J. T. ^{[2
]}

Mkhoyan, K. A. ^{[2
]}

Wang, W. G. ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] Univ Arizona, Dept Phys, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA

[2] Univ Minnesota, Dept Chem Engn & Mat Sci, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA

[3] Sunnyside High Sch, Dept Sci, Tucson, AZ 85706 USA

来源：

APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS | 2015年 / 106卷 / 18期

基金：

美国国家科学基金会;

关键词：

ROOM-TEMPERATURE; FILMS;

D O I：

10.1063/1.4919873

中图分类号：

O59 [应用物理学];

学科分类号：

摘要：

Structural, magnetic, and transport studies have been performed on perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions (pMTJ) with Mo as the buffer and capping layers. After annealing samples at 300 degrees C and higher, consistently better performance was obtained compared to that of conventional pMTJs with Ta layers. Large tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) values were retained in a wide range of samples with Mo layers after annealing for 2 h at 400 degrees C, in sharp contrast to the junctions with Ta layers, in which superparamagnetic behavior with nearly vanishing magnetoresistance was observed. As a result of the greatly improved thermal stability, TMR as high as 162% was obtained in junctions containing Mo layers. These results highlight the importance of the heavy-metal layers adjacent to CoFeB electrodes for achieving larger TMR, stronger PMA, and higher thermal stability in pMTJs. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

引用

页数：5

共 31 条

[11] Large enhanced perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in CoFeB/MgO system with the typical Ta buffer replaced by an Hf layer [J].