Current-driven magnetization switching in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions

Jun Hayakawa; Shoji Ikeda; Young Min Lee; Ryutaro Sasaki; Toshiyasu Meguro; Fumihiro Matsukura; Hiromasa Takahashi; Hideo Ohno

doi:10.1143/JJAP.44.L1267

Current-driven magnetization switching in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions

Materials Science 2009-11-11 v1

Authors: Jun Hayakawa , Shoji Ikeda , Young Min Lee , Ryutaro Sasaki , Toshiyasu Meguro , Fumihiro Matsukura , Hiromasa Takahashi , Hideo Ohno

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Abstract

Current-driven magnetization switching in low-resistance Co40Fe40B20/MgO/Co40Fe40B20 magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) is reported. The critical-current densities Jc required for current-driven switching in samples annealed at 270C and 300C are found to be as low as 7.8 x 10^5 A/cm^2 and 8.8 x 10^5 A/cm^2 with accompanying tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratios of 49% and 73 %, respectively. Further annealing of the samples at 350C increases TMR ratio to 160 %, while accompanying Jc increases to 2.5 x 10^6 A/cm^2. We attribute the low Jc to the high spin-polarization of tunnel current and small MsV product of the CoFeB single free layer, where Ms is the saturation magnetization and V the volume of the free layer.

Keywords

magnetic tunnel junctions

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0510538,
  title  = {Current-driven magnetization switching in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions},
  author = {Jun Hayakawa and Shoji Ikeda and Young Min Lee and Ryutaro Sasaki and Toshiyasu Meguro and Fumihiro Matsukura and Hiromasa Takahashi and Hideo Ohno},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0510538},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

13 pages, 5 figures

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