Effect of Image Potential on Spin Polarized Transport through Magnetic Tunnel Junctions

We study the effect of image potential on spin polarized transport through Fe/MgO/Fe magnetic tunnel junctions in the presence of symmetry filtering. The image potential is included within the Simmon's model coupled with the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism to calculate the quantum transport. The increase in the current densities for the $\Delta_1$ symmetry and the $\Delta_5$ symmetry bands due to the image potential is more pronounced at higher bias, whereas, the increase in the magnitude of the tunnel magnetoresistance ratio is more prominent at lower bias for various barrier thicknesses.