Reliability of magnetic tunnel junctions with a spinel MgAl2O4 film

C.M. Choi; H. Sukegawa; S. Mitani; Y.H. Song

Reliability of magnetic tunnel junctions with a spinel MgAl₂O₄ film

View Fulltext

Author(s): C.M. Choi ¹ ; H. Sukegawa ² ; S. Mitani ² ; Y.H. Song ¹
- Affiliations: 1: Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Republic of Korea ;
  2: Research Center for Magnetic and Spintronic Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0047, Japan
Source: Volume 53, Issue 2, 19 January 2017, p. 119 – 121
DOI: 10.1049/el.2016.3007 , Print ISSN 0013-5194, Online ISSN 1350-911X

Received 15/08/2016, Published 05/12/2016

We investigated the stress-induced resistance drift and breakdown characteristics in MgAl₂O₄ (MAO)-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with the MAO thickness of ∼0.9 nm. The occurrence of trap sites around the tunnel barrier–electrode interfaces was characterised via interval voltage stress (IVS) and constant voltage stress (CVS) experiments, in which the occurrence of trap sites affects the resistance drift in IVS and time-dependent dielectric breakdown in CVS. The observed resistance drift ratios were almost the same for positive and negative applied voltages, indicating that the difference in the interface structure was negligibly small between the top and bottom MAO/CoFe interfaces in the MAO-based MTJs. More interestingly, the resistance drift ratios were very low compared with the results of a previous study on MgO-based MTJs. MAO-based MTJs is likely to be an effective alternative that can be used to improve MTJ device reliability.

References

1. 1)
  - 10. Sukegawa, H., Xiu, H., Ohkubo, T., et al: ‘Tunnel magnetoresistance with improved bias voltage dependence in lattice-matched Fe/spinel MgAl2O4/Fe(001) junctions’, Appl. Phys. Lett., 2010, 96, pp. 212505-1–212505-3, doi: 10.1063/1.3441409.
2. 2)
  - 1. Parkin, S.: ‘Spin-polarized current in spin valves and magnetic tunnel junctions’, MRS Bulletin, 2006, 31, pp. 389–394 (doi: 10.1557/mrs2006.99).
3. 3)
  - 2. Yuasa, S., Djayaprawira, D.D.: ‘Giant tunnel magnetoresistance in magnetic tunnel junctions with a crystalline MgO(001) barrier’, J. Phys D: Appl. Phys., 2007, 40, pp. R337–R354 (doi: 10.1088/0022-3727/40/21/R01).
4. 4)
  - 5. Sankey, J.C., Cui, Y.T., Sun, J.Z., Slonczewski, J.C., Buhrman, R.A., Ralph, D.C.: ‘Measurement of the spin-transfer-torque vector in magnetic tunnel junctions’, Nat. Phys., 2008, 4, pp. 67–71 (doi: 10.1038/nphys783).
5. 5)
  - 7. Choi, C.M., Oh, Y.T., Lee, J.Y., Sukegawa, H., Mitani, S., Song, Y.H.: ‘Effect of Mg insertion on stress-induced resistance drift in MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions’, Electron. Lett., 2016, 52, pp. 531–533 (doi: 10.1049/el.2015.4299).
6. 6)
  - 9. Choi, C.M., Sukegawa, H., Mitani, S., Song, Y.H.: ‘Effect on Mg insertion on time-dependent dielectric breakdown in MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions’, Electron. Lett., 2016, 52, pp. 1037–1039 (doi: 10.1049/el.2016.0686).
7. 7)
  - 6. Shiota, Y., Nozaki, T., Bonell, F., Murakami, S., Shinjo, T., Suzuki, Y.: ‘Induction of coherent magnetization switching in a few atomic layers of FeCo using voltage pulses’, Nat. Mater., 2012, 11, pp. 39–43 (doi: 10.1038/nmat3172).
8. 8)
  - 4. Hosomi, M., Yamagishi, H., Yamamoto, T., et al: ‘A novel non-volatile memory with spin torque transfer magnetization switching: spin-RAM’. IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, Technical Digest, Washington, DC, December 2005, pp. 459–462, doi: 10.1109/IEDM.2005.1609379.
9. 9)
  - 8. Hosotani, K., Nagamine, M., Aikawa, H., et al: ‘Resistance drift of MgO magnetic tunnel junctions by trapping and degradation of coherent tunneling’. IEEE Int. Reliability Physics Symp., Phoenix, AZ, USA, April 2008, pp. 703–704, doi: 10.1109/Relphy.2008.4558997.
10. 10)
  - 1. Ikeda, S., Hayakawa, J., Young, M.L., et al: ‘Magnetic tunnel junctions for spintronic memories and beyond’, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, 2007, 54, (5), pp. 991–1002 (doi: 10.1109/TED.2007.894617).
11. 11)
  - 11. Sukegawa, H., Mitani, S., Ohkubo, T., Inomata, K., Hono, K.: ‘Low-resistive monocrystalline Mg-Al-O barrier magnetic tunnel junctions for spin-transfer magnetization switching’, Appl. Phys. Lett., 2013, 103, pp. 142409-1–142409-5 (doi: 10.1063/1.4824134).

Correspondence

This article has following corresponding article(s):

interview

Login

Not registered yet?

Share

Tools

Login to add to favourites

Key

Reliability of magnetic tunnel junctions with a spinel MgAl₂O₄ film

References

Related content