Magnetically soft, high moment grain-refined Fe films: application to magnetic tunnel junctions

Georgieva, MT; Telling, ND; Grundy, PJ; Faunce, CA; Jones, GA

Abstract

The effect of N-doping on the microstructure and magnetic properties of thin Fe layers has been employed to construct all Fe-electrode magnetic tunnel junctions that displayed the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) effect. Using low nitrogen doses, a reduction in coercivity was achieved due to grain refinement, without a concurrent decrease in the saturation magnetization of the Fe films caused by the formation of crystalline iron nitride phases. It was demonstrated that this N-induced grain refinement can be applied beneficially to control the switching field of the "free" layer in magnetic trilayer structures. In general the ability to control magnetic softness without reducing saturation magnetization will prove important for incorporating high spin-polarized materials into spin valves and TMR devices.

Citation

Georgieva, M., Telling, N., Grundy, P., Faunce, C., & Jones, G. (2004). Magnetically soft, high moment grain-refined Fe films: application to magnetic tunnel junctions. Journal of Applied Physics, 96(5), 2923-2926. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1776627

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2004
• Deposit Date: Sep 3, 2007
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 3, 2007
• Journal: Journal of Applied Physics
• Print ISSN: 0021-8979
• Publisher: AIP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 96
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 2923-2926
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1776627
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1776627
• Related Public URLs: http://www.aip.org/; http://jap.aip.org/