Enhancement of MR ratios using thin oxide layers in PtMn and α-Fe2O3-based spin valves

Spin valves having thin oxide layers in the pinned and/or free layers were prepared by sputtering. MR ratios of the spin valves were increased from 8.1 to 11.9% by inserting the oxide layer into the pinned layer in Ta/PtMn/CoFe/Cu/CoFe/Ta spin valves. MR ratio of 13.9% and considerably large sheet ΔR of 2.55 Ω were obtained in the PtMn-based spin valves having the oxide layer in the pinned and free layer. Larger MR ratio of 17.3% and the sheet ΔR of 1.3 Ω were obtained in the PtMn-based dual-type spin valves having the oxide layer in both pinned layers. α-Fe₂O₃ based spin valves having thin oxide layers were also prepared. MR ratios of the spin valves were increased from 11.9 to 14.3% by inserting the oxide layer into the free layer in α-Fe₂O₃/CoFe/Cu/CoFe/Ta spin valves. The enhancement of the MR ratios may be attributed to the specular scattering effect of the conduction electrons by the thin oxide layers.     

合成反铁磁Ni81Fe19/Co90Fe10/Ru/Co90Fe10/Ni81Fe19的研究

采用直流磁控溅射方法制备了一系列的合成反铁磁及以其为自由层的自旋阀.研究发现,在Ni₈₁Fe₁₉与Ru层之间插入适当厚度的Co₉₀Fe₁₀层后,可有效地提高合成反铁磁两磁性层间的反铁磁耦合强度,得到具有饱和场H_s更高、饱和磁化强度M_s更低、热稳定性更好的合成反铁磁.另外,以这种合成反铁磁作自旋阀的自由层时,可有效提高自旋阀的稳定性. 关键词： 合成反铁磁 退火 自旋阀     

Response to comment on “Controlled injection of spin triplet supercurrents into a strong ferromagnet”

The comment by Lin He proposes that at the interface between holmium and cobalt an interesting magnetic proximity effect occurs in which the spiral magnetic wavelength (λ) of holmium is enhanced to 5.4 nm. Consequently, the optimum holmium layer thickness for the superconductor spin triplet proximity effect to occur in Nb/Ho/Co/Ho/Nb Josephson junctions of ≈4.5 and ≈10 nm would then correspond to the presence of ≈λ/2 and ≈3λ/2 spiral wavelengths. Although intriguing, this idea seems to be at odds with the conventional micromagnetics of either thin film (polycrystalline) holmium or single-crystal Ho at low temperatures (10 K). Although an increase in λ in Ho/metal multilayer thin films with epitaxially matched interfaces has been reported, the possibility of such an effect in a polycrystalline system seems unlikely.     

Magnetoresistance and magnetization studies through a Cu interlayer in spin valves of NiFe/Cu/NiFe/FeMn

The influence of the Cu layer thickness on the magnetic and magnetotransport properties has been investigated in Ta/NiFe/Cu/NiFe/FeMn spin valves. The magnetization and magnetoresistance measurements were carried out for magnetic field applied along the easy-axis direction. A phenomenological model, which assumes formation of a planar domain wall at the anti-ferromagnetic side of the interfaces as well as bilinear coupling between the ferromagnetic layers, was used to derive the anisotropy characteristics and orientation of each NiFe layer magnetization. The anisotropy and spin valve magnetoresistance were simulated numerically and compared with the experiment. It was found that the anisotropy magnetoresistance is negligible and that there is a poor agreement for the spin-valve one, which was attributed to the model (valid for ferromagnetic layers in single-domain state only) used for its calculation. It was found that the increase of the Cu layer thickness provokes a decrease of the interdiffusion between the NiFe and FeMn layers, and, as consequence, changes of the uniaxial anisotropy of the pinned NiFe layer, of the exchange interaction between the pinned NiFe layer and the FeMn ones, as well as of the exchange-bias field of the pinned NiFe layer.     

Spin valve with a composite dysprosium-based pinned layer as a tool for determining Dy nanolayer helimagnetism

Spin valves with nanostructure CoFe/Dy/CoFe and three-layer structures metal/Dy/metal were prepared by magnetron sputtering. The measurements of field dependences of magnetoresistance and magnetization were held at different temperatures. The changes of magnetotransport properties of spin valve containing CoFe/Dy/CoFe structure were used for getting information on the magnetic ordering in the dysprosium layer. The characteristic changes of magnetotransport properties caused by the formation of helical ordering in dysprosium layer were detected. Special attention was paid to the estimation of Neel temperature and to the investigation of microstructure of dysprosium nanolayer.     

Improving exchange-coupling field in the same thickness of pinned magnetic layer

A conventional Ta/NiFe/Cu/NiFe/FeMn spin valve was prepared to investigate the exchange bias properties with the variations of deposition field. By enhancing the deposition magnetic fields from 50 to 650 Oe, increase of exchange bias fields at a given thickness of the pinned NiFe layer has been found in the spin valves. In this paper, we show that this increase is due to the change of magnetic moment distribution at the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interface by comparison of measured results with the interfacial uncompensated model. Therefore, by enhancing deposition magnetic fields, a large exchange-coupling field can be achieved in relatively thicker magnetic films for application.     

Effect of thermal deformation on giant magnetoresistance of flexible spin valves grown on polyvinylidene fluoride membranes

We fabricated flexible spin valves on polyvinylidene fluoride(PVDF) membranes and investigated the influence of thermal deformation of substrates on the giant magnetoresistance(GMR) behaviors. The large magnetostrictive Fe_(81)Ga_(19)(Fe Ga) alloy and the low magnetostrictive Fe_(19)Ni_(81)(Fe Ni) alloy were selected as the free and pinned ferromagnetic layers.In addition, the exchange bias(EB) of the pinned layer was set along the different thermal deformation axes α_(31) or α_(32) of PVDF. The GMR ratio of the reference spin valves grown on Si intrinsically increases with lowering temperature due to an enhancement of spontaneous magnetization. For flexible spin valves, when decreasing temperature, the anisotropic thermal deformation of PVDF produces a uniaxial anisotropy along the α_(32) direction, which changes the distribution of magnetic domains. As a result, the GMR ratio at low temperature for spin valves with EB α_(32)becomes close to that on Si, but for spin valves with EB α_(31)is far away from that on Si. This thermal effect on GMR behaviors is more significant when using magnetostrictive Fe Ga as the free layer.     

电流感应磁化翻转效应的改进的系综模型

运用宏观双通道扩散模型研究了赝自旋阀结构中的自旋相关输运过程,考虑到磁化强度矢量的横向分量的影响,建立了自由层磁化强度矢量的动力学方程,利用自旋流连续和化学势差连续作为边界条件.理论计算求解了电流感应磁化翻转效应中的临界电流,解释了铁磁层和非磁层电导率匹配问题和纵向场对电流感应磁化翻转效应中临界电流的影响. 关键词： 赝自旋阀 电导率匹配 自旋转移扭矩 电流感应磁化翻转效应     

Synthetic Co50Pt50/Ru/CoFe hard–soft trilayer in spin valves

The influence of deposition power and seedlayer on the properties of hard magnet Co₅₀Pt₅₀ was studied. Co₅₀Pt₅₀(/Co₉₀Fe₁₀)/Ru/Co₉₀Fe₁₀ trilayer was used as pining/pinned layer in spin valves. The influences of different hard layer, soft layer and free layer on exchange bias, interlayer coupling, and magnetoresistance (MR) ratio were studied. Weak antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling was obtained by adjusting the thickness of hard and soft layers. MR of a spin valve with structure Cr2/CoFe0.5/CoPt4/CoFe0.5/Ru0.8/CoFe2.2/Cu2.05/CoFe2.6/Cu1.1/Ta1 reached 10.68% (unit in nm), which is comparable to those of IrMn-based synthetic spin valves. The increment of the coercivity of the free layer is mainly due to the static magnetic interaction between the hard layer and the free layer.     

Huge exchange-coupling field observed in FeMn-pinned spin valve with ultra-thin pinned NiFe layer

A conventional Ta/NiFe/Cu/NiFe/FeMn/Ta spin valve multilayer was prepared to investigate the exchange bias variations of the pinned NiFe layer. An exchange bias field of 560 Oe has been found in a valve multilayer with ultra-thin pinned NiFe layers (1 nm), in which a large constant magnetic field of 700 Oe was applied during film deposition procession. The observed results are attributed to the large applied magnetic field, which produced more net spins of the antiferromagnet at the interface. These interfacial uncompensated spins provide the net spin moments required for exchange coupling and bias.     

Current-induced domain formation in magnetic junctions

A junction between two ferromagnetic metal layers with fixed spins in one of them and free spins in the other (spin valve) is considered. The junction is placed in an external magnetic field that orients the free layer oppositely to the fixed layer. It is shown that the spin-polarized electron flow from the fixed layer to the free layer gives rise to stable motionless magnetic domains in the free layer, provided that the magnetic field and the thickness of the free layer are large enough.     

Pseudo spin-valves with Al or Nb as spacer layer: GMR and search for spin switch behaviour

The magnetoresistance of several Ferromagnet/Normal metal/Ferromagnet spin-valve type structures has been investigated using Al as normal spacer layer. A magnetoresistance ratio up to 4.1% at room temperature and 5.7% at 0.3 K is found for the sandwich with both Co layers, while slightly lower signals are found for the structures involving CoFe and NiFe layers. The magnetoresistance dependence for Co/Al/Co, Co/Al/CoFe and Co/Al/NiFe on the spacer layer thickness exhibits the familiar non monotonic behaviour with second peak slightly larger than the one reported for Cu based pseudo spin valves. At cryogenic temperatures, preliminary results on the onset of spin switch effects in Co/Al/Co and the full spin switch effect in Co/Nb/Co are also reported here.     

Co/Cu multilayers studied by using the119Sn probe

To observe spin polarization in nonmagnetic layers sandwiched by magnetic layers,¹¹⁹Sn Mössbauer spectra of [Co(20 Å)/Cu(20-x Å)/¹¹⁹Sn(1.5 Å)/Cu(x Å)] (x=0, 5 and 10) multilayers were measured. A magnetic fraction is observed in every spectrum, and the average hyperfine field ¯H _f at Sn nuclei in a Cu layer changes from 14 kOe (x=0) to 8 kOe (x=10). It was also observed that the polarization is greatly reduced by adding a Cr layer of only 2 Å to the Co/Cu interfaces. The spectrum of thex=10 film, measured under an external field of 30 kOe, cannot be interpreted without assuming magnetic fractions both in parallel and antiparallel to the external field, which indicates an oscillation of spin polarization in a Cu layer.     

Thermally assisted writing for perpendicular MRAM

Spin valves composed of TbCo/CoFe/Cu/CoFe/TbFeCo were fabricated with perpendicular magnetization and GMR ratios of 4.5%. The (TbCo/CoFe) layers and (CoFe/TbFeCo) layers are referred to the free and the pinned layers, respectively. The compositions of two layers were chosen to have a lower Curie temperature (130 °C) but higher coercivity (13.2 kOe) of the free layer at room temperature than those of the pinned layer; therefore, the free layer is quite stable at room temperature but its magnetization can be easily switched at a relatively low temperature. Spin valves were patterned into 100-μm-wide cells and their coercivity was reduced with increasing writing current due to the temperature rise by current-heating. When the current density of the writing current was increased to 2.1×10⁶ A/cm², the required switching field for the free layer was only 10 Oe.     

Interplay between nonequilibrium and equilibrium spin torque using synthetic ferrimagnets

We discuss the current induced magnetization dynamics of spin valves F(0)|N|SyF where the free layer is a synthetic ferrimagnet SyF made of two ferromagnetic layers F(1) and F(2) coupled by RKKY exchange coupling. When the magnetic moment of the outer layer F(2) dominates the magnetization of the SyF, the sign of the effective spin torque exerted on the layer F(1) is controlled by the coupling's strength: for weak coupling the spin torque tends to antialign F(1)'s magnetization with respect to the pinned layer F(0). At large coupling the situation is reversed and tends to align F(1) with respect to F(0). At intermediate coupling, numerical simulations reveal that the competition between these two incompatible limits leads generically to spin torque oscillator (STO) behavior. The STO is found at zero magnetic field, with very significant amplitude of oscillations and frequencies up to 50 GHz or higher.     

Magnetic behaviour investigation on symmetric spin valves of Co／Cu／NiFe and NiFe／Cu／Co

In this paper,we have obtained and investigated the magnetic behaviours of the ferromagnetic layer in the symmetric spin valves of Co/Cu/NiFe and NiFe/Cu/Co by measuring with a vibrating sample magnetometer and analysing in terms of the multi-domain Ising models.It has been found that some magnetic layer can have quite different magnetic behaviours in different structures of spin valves,depending on the properties of the under-layer.In our investigation,we have found that the magnetic behaviour of a Co layer depends mainly on the magnetization of the under-layer,whereas this is not the case for the NiFe layer.     

NM/FI/NI/FI/NM新型双自旋过滤隧道结的隧穿电导和隧穿磁电阻

在NM/FI/FI/NM型双自旋过滤隧道结(此处NM为非磁金属层，FI为铁磁绝缘体或半导体层)的基础上，我们提出一种NM/FI/NI/FI/NM新型双自旋过滤隧道结(此处NI表示非磁绝缘体或半导体层). 插入NI层的目的是为了避免原双自旋过滤隧道结中相邻FI层界面处磁的耦合作用所导致的对隧穿磁电阻的不利影响. 在自由电子近似的基础上，利用转移矩阵方法，对NM/FI/NI/FI/NM新型双自旋过滤隧道结的隧穿电导、隧穿磁电阻与FI层及NI层厚度的变化关系以及随偏压的变化关系进行了理论研究.计算结果表明，在NM/FI/NI/FI/NM新型双自旋过滤隧道结中仍可以得到很大的TMR值. 关键词： 双自旋过滤隧道结 隧穿磁电阻 非磁绝缘(半导)体间隔层     

Mechanism of exchange switching of spin valves by an inverse current

The exchange switching of spin valves by an inverse current can be explained by the interaction of the charge carriers with the spin-injection effective magnetic field. Such an interaction gives rise to transverse spin components, which are transferred to the magnetic lattice and cause its instability and switching. The spin-injection field is produced by longitudinal spin components, but it opens up a channel for the transverse spin transfer to the lattice. The spin transfer to the lattice and the switching occur in the free layer of the spin valve.     

Magnetoresistance of Fe3O4/Au/Fe3O4 and Fe3O4/Au/Fe spin-valve structures

A detailed study of the in-plane magnetotransport properties of spin valves with one and two Fe₃O₄ electrodes is presented. Fe₃O₄/Au/Fe₃O₄ spin valves exhibit a clear anisotropic magnetoresistance in small magnetic fields but no giant magnetoresistance (GMR). The absence of GMR in these structures is due to simultaneous magnetization reversal in the two Fe₃O₄ layers. By contrast, a negative GMR effect is measured on Fe₃O₄/Au/Fe spin valves. The negative GMR is attributed to an electron spin scattering asymmetry at the Fe₃O₄/Au interface or an induced spin scattering asymmetry in the Au interfacial layers.     

磁性隧道结自旋极化电子的隧穿特性

铁磁金属间通过中间层的自旋极化电子隧穿产生的磁性耦合,在自旋电子器件中有许多潜在的应用.考虑由一平面磁性势垒层隔开的两铁磁性金属电极构成的磁性隧道结,针对中间层形成的矩形势垒,在近自由电子模型的基础上,计算零偏压下的隧穿电导、自旋极化率和隧穿磁阻比率,分析势垒层特性、分子场强弱、分子场相对取向等对隧道结自旋极化电子隧穿特性的影响.计算结果对自旋电子器件的设计具有一定的指导意义.