TY - JOUR
T1 - Shape anisotropy revisited in single-digit nanometer magnetic tunnel junctions
AU - Watanabe, K.
AU - Jinnai, B.
AU - Fukami, S.
AU - Sato, H.
AU - Ohno, H.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank S. Ikeda, F. Matsukura, and J. Llandro for fruitful discussion and C. Igarashi, T. Hirata, H. Iwanuma, Y. Kawato, K. Goto, I. Morita, R. Ono, and M. Musya for their technical support. A portion of this work was supported by R&D Project for ICT Key Technology to Realize Future Society of MEXT, JST-OPERA, ImPACT Program of CSTI, JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 17H06093, 15H05521, and Cooperative Research Projects of RIEC. K.W. acknowledges the Graduate Program in Spintronics, Tohoku University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - Nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions play a pivotal role in magnetoresistive random access memories. Successful implementation depends on a simultaneous achievement of low switching current for the magnetization switching by spin transfer torque and high thermal stability, along with a continuous reduction of junction size. Perpendicular easy-axis CoFeB/MgO stacks possessing interfacial anisotropy have paved the way down to 20-nm scale, below which a new approach needs to be explored. Here we show magnetic tunnel junctions that satisfy the requirements at ultrafine scale by revisiting shape anisotropy, which is a classical part of magnetic anisotropy but has not been fully utilized in the current perpendicular systems. Magnetization switching solely driven by current is achieved for junctions smaller than 10 nm where sufficient thermal stability is provided by shape anisotropy without adopting new material systems. This work is expected to push forward the development of magnetic tunnel junctions toward single-digit nm-scale nano-magnetics/spintronics.
AB - Nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions play a pivotal role in magnetoresistive random access memories. Successful implementation depends on a simultaneous achievement of low switching current for the magnetization switching by spin transfer torque and high thermal stability, along with a continuous reduction of junction size. Perpendicular easy-axis CoFeB/MgO stacks possessing interfacial anisotropy have paved the way down to 20-nm scale, below which a new approach needs to be explored. Here we show magnetic tunnel junctions that satisfy the requirements at ultrafine scale by revisiting shape anisotropy, which is a classical part of magnetic anisotropy but has not been fully utilized in the current perpendicular systems. Magnetization switching solely driven by current is achieved for junctions smaller than 10 nm where sufficient thermal stability is provided by shape anisotropy without adopting new material systems. This work is expected to push forward the development of magnetic tunnel junctions toward single-digit nm-scale nano-magnetics/spintronics.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-018-03003-7
DO - 10.1038/s41467-018-03003-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 29445169
AN - SCOPUS:85042131061
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 9
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 663
ER -