Demonstration of reconfigurable magnetic tunnel diode and giant tunnel magnetoresistance in magnetic tunnel junctions made with spin gapless semiconductor and half-metallic Heusler alloy

Here, we report fabrication of a high quality exchanged biased trilayer magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) utilizing a magnetron sputtering system. The MTJ is composed of a type-II spin gapless semiconductor (SGS) Ti2CoSi inverse Heusler alloy (used as a lower electrode), a thin MgO layer (used as a tun...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2022-02, Vol.120 (7)
Main Authors: Maji, Nilay, Nath, Tapan Kumar
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied physics
Electrical junctions
Electron spin
Electronic devices
Ferromagnetism
Heusler alloys
Magnesium oxide
Magnetoresistivity
Magnetron sputtering
Random access memory
Reconfiguration
Room temperature
Transport properties
Tunnel diodes
Tunnel junctions
Tunnel magnetoresistance
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Summary:Here, we report fabrication of a high quality exchanged biased trilayer magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) utilizing a magnetron sputtering system. The MTJ is composed of a type-II spin gapless semiconductor (SGS) Ti2CoSi inverse Heusler alloy (used as a lower electrode), a thin MgO layer (used as a tunnel barrier), and a half-metallic ferromagnet (HMF) Co2MnSi Heusler alloy (used as an upper electrode). Spin dependent transport properties reveal that the micro-fabricated MTJ can act as a reconfigurable magnetic tunnel diode, which lets the electric current to flow in either the forward or reverse path relying on the relative alignment of the magnetization direction of the upper and lower magnetic electrodes. A considerably high on/off current ratio (∼103) and a significantly low turn on voltage (VT) of 0.09 V have been achieved at 5 K for both parallel and antiparallel configurations. Another important characteristic shown by our fabricated MTJ is that it exhibits extremely large tunnel magnetoresistance ratios of 892% at 5 K and 197% at room temperature, which brings to light the utmost importance of using the combination of HMF and SGS materials as magnetic electrodes in a tunnel junction for potential applications in modern spintronic devices. All these exceptional features can undoubtedly nominate CMS/MgO/TCS MTJs as a promising candidate to serve as memory or logic elements in next generation ultra-high density magnetoresistive random access memories together with contemporary spin based electronic devices.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/5.0077607