TY - JOUR
T1 - Enhancement of Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy Through Fe Insertion at the CoFe/W Interface
AU - Peng, Shouzhong
AU - Wang, Lezhi
AU - Li, Xiang
AU - Wang, Zilu
AU - Zhou, Jiaqi
AU - Qiao, Junfeng
AU - Chen, Runze
AU - Zhang, Youguang
AU - Wang, Kang L.
AU - Zhao, Weisheng
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61571023 and Grant 61627813, in part by the International Collaboration Project under Grant B16001, in part by the National Key Technology Program of China under Grant 2017ZX01032101, in part by the Special Foundation of Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission under Grant Z161100000216149, and in part by the National Science Foundation Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems.
PY - 2018/11
Y1 - 2018/11
N2 - Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) based on MgO/CoFeB/W structures are of particular interest for magnetic random access memories due to their high tunnel magnetoresistance, low damping, and stable properties at high annealing temperature. One of the major challenges is to obtain a strong interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) for sufficient thermal stability during data storage. Here we investigate magnetic anisotropy energies (MAEs) in the ferromagnet (FM)/W structure with different FM materials and interface insertions. We find that the Fe/W interface exhibits a remarkable PMA, whereas the Co/W interface displays a large in-plane anisotropy, which reduces the PMA in the MgO/CoFeB/W structure. By inserting a thin Fe layer at the CoFe/W interface, the interfacial PMA can be enhanced to 3.34 mJ/m2. Microscopic mechanism behind these phenomena is explained with the changes of orbital-resolved MAEs due to the charge redistribution at the interface. These findings pave a new way for the enhancement of PMA and point toward the possibility of achieving high thermal stability in small-node MTJs.
AB - Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) based on MgO/CoFeB/W structures are of particular interest for magnetic random access memories due to their high tunnel magnetoresistance, low damping, and stable properties at high annealing temperature. One of the major challenges is to obtain a strong interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) for sufficient thermal stability during data storage. Here we investigate magnetic anisotropy energies (MAEs) in the ferromagnet (FM)/W structure with different FM materials and interface insertions. We find that the Fe/W interface exhibits a remarkable PMA, whereas the Co/W interface displays a large in-plane anisotropy, which reduces the PMA in the MgO/CoFeB/W structure. By inserting a thin Fe layer at the CoFe/W interface, the interfacial PMA can be enhanced to 3.34 mJ/m2. Microscopic mechanism behind these phenomena is explained with the changes of orbital-resolved MAEs due to the charge redistribution at the interface. These findings pave a new way for the enhancement of PMA and point toward the possibility of achieving high thermal stability in small-node MTJs.
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U2 - 10.1109/TMAG.2018.2848303
DO - 10.1109/TMAG.2018.2848303
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85049691220
VL - 54
JO - IEEE Transactions on Magnetics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Magnetics
SN - 0018-9464
IS - 11
M1 - 8408732
ER -