Fast switching in CoTb based ferrimagnetic tunnel junction

• Published in: Journal of applied physics 2019-07, Vol.126 (2)
• Main Authors: Reza, Ahmed Kamal, Roy, Kaushik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied physics; Computer simulation; Coupling; Current injection; Domains; Exchanging; Ferrimagnetism; Ferromagnetism; Green's functions; Hall effect; Heavy metals; Magnesium oxide; Magnetic moments; Magnetism; Magnetization; Magnetoresistance; Magnetoresistivity; Power consumption; Simulation; Spintronics; Switching; Thermal stability; Torque; Tunnel junctions
• ISSN: 0021-8979; 1089-7550
• DOI: 10.1063/1.5089756

A ferrimagnet (FiM) has small domains consisting of oppositely polarized and unequal magnetic moments. Oppositely polarized magnetic moments have strong exchange coupling between them resulting in robust torque in FiM called bulk torque. Due to the strong bulk torque, magnetic moments in FiM do not precess around the switching axis for a long time unlike ferromagnets (FMs) leading to faster switching speed compared to FM. In this paper, we propose and model the switching of FiM (CoTb) with spin current injection from heavy metal with strong spin Hall effect (SHE) such as Pt. We carry out ab initio calculation of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) at the FiM(CoTb)/heavy metal(Pt) interface using spin polarized relativistic Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker (KKR) Green’s function method. We compute the exchange coupling among the magnetic moments inside the CoTb layer and model how the spin-orbit torque (SOT) along with the bulk torque can efficiently switch the FiM. Then, we consider a ferrimagnet based magnetic tunnel junction (FMTJ) with SHE metal. We perform a comprehensive simulation and performance analysis of FiM(CoTb)/MgO/CoFeB and FiM(CoTb)/MgO/FiM(CoTb) FMTJs with Pt underlayer. Using non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism, we calculate the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) of the proposed FMTJs at room temperature. Furthermore, the importance of thickness in CoTb magnetization dynamics is shown using our FiM magnetization simulation framework. We analyze and show that the CoTb based FMTJ has large switching energy barrier to ensure thermal stability. Finally, we show the performance comparison (TMR, write performance and power consumption) between our proposed FMTJs and FM based MTJ and our simulation exhibits that for picosecond range switching speed, FMTJ is ∼25 times more energy efficient than FM based MTJ.