Impurity induced enhancement of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in Fe/MgO tunnel junctions

Using first-principles calculations, we investigated the impact of chromium (Cr) and vanadium (V) impurities on the magnetic anisotropy and spin polarization in Fe/MgO magnetic tunnel junctions. It is demonstrated using layer resolved anisotropy calculation technique, that while the impurity near the interface has a drastic effect in decreasing the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), its position within the bulk allows maintaining high surface PMA. Moreover, the effective magnetic anisotropy has a strong tendency to go from in-plane to out-of-plane character as a function of Cr and V concentration favoring out-of-plane magnetization direction for ~1.5 nm thick Fe layers at impurity concentrations above 20 %. At the same time, spin polarization is not affected and even enhanced in most situations favoring an increase of tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) values.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Artificial ferroelectricity due to anomalous Hall effect in magnetic tunnel junctions

We theoretically investigated Anomalous Hall Effect (AHE) and Spin Hall Effect (SHE) transversally to the insulating spacer O, in magnetic tunnel junctions of the form F/O/F where F are ferromagnetic layers and O represents a tunnel barrier. We considered the case of purely ballistic (quantum mechanical) transport, taking into account the assymetric scattering due to spin-orbit interaction in the tunnel barrier. AHE and SHE in the considered case have a surface nature due to proximity effect. Their amplitude is in first order of the scattering potential. This contrasts with ferromagnetic metals wherein these effect are in second (side-jump scattering) and third (skew scattering) order on these potentials. The value of AHE voltage in insulating spacer may be much larger than in metallic ferromagnetic electrodes. For the antiparallel orientation of the magnetizations in the two F-electrodes, a spontaneous Hall voltage exists even at zero applied voltage. Therefore an insulating spacer sandwiched between two ferromagnetic layers can be considered as exhibiting a spontaneous ferroelectricity

Anatomy of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in Fe/MgO magnetic tunnel junctions: First principles insight

Using first-principles calculations, we elucidate microscopic mechanisms of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA)in Fe/MgO magnetic tunnel junctions through evaluation of orbital and layer resolved contributions into the total anisotropy value. It is demonstrated that the origin of the large PMA values is far beyond simply considering the hybridization between Fe-3d$and O-2p orbitals at the interface between the metal and the insulator. On-site projected analysis show that the anisotropy energy is not localized at the interface but it rather propagates into the bulk showing an attenuating oscillatory behavior which depends on orbital character of contributing states and interfacial conditions. Furthermore, it is found in most situations that states with$d_{yz(xz)}$and$d_{z^2}$character tend always to maintain the PMA while those with$d_{xy}$and$d_{x^2-y^2}$character tend to favor the in-plane anisotropy. It is also found that while MgO thickness has no influence on PMA, the calculated perpendicular magnetic anisotropy oscillates as a function of Fe thickness with a period of 2ML and reaches a maximum value of 3.6 mJ/m$^2$.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Current perpendicular to plane Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) in laminated nanostructures

We theoretically studied spin dependent electron transport perpendicular-to-plain (CPP) in magnetic laminated multilayered structures by using Kubo formalism. We took into account not only bulk scattering, but the interface resistance due to both specular and diffuse reflection and also spin conserving and spin-flip processes. It was shown that spin-flip scattering at interfaces substantially reduces the value of GMR. This can explain the experimental observations that the CPP GMR ratio for laminated structures only slightly increases as compared to non-laminated ones despite lamination induces a significant increase in CPP resistance.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Spin-dependent diffraction at ferromagnetic/spin spiral interface

Spin-dependent transport is investigated in ballistic regime through the interface between a ferromagnet and a spin spiral. We show that spin-dependent interferences lead to a new type of diffraction called "spin-diffraction". It is shown that this spin-diffraction leads to local spin and electrical currents along the interface. This study also shows that in highly non homogeneous magnetic configuration (non adiabatic limit), the contribution of the diffracted electrons is crucial to describe spin transport in such structures

Respective influence of in-plane and out-of-plane spin-transfer torques in magnetization switching of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions

The relative contributions of in-plane (damping-like) and out-of-plane (field-like) spin-transfer-torques in the magnetization switching of out-of-plane magnetized magnetic tunnel junctions (pMTJ) has been theoretically analyzed using the transformed Landau-Lifshitz (LL) equation with the STT terms. It is demonstrated that in a pMTJ structure obeying macrospin dynamics, the out-of-plane torque influences the precession frequency but it does not contribute significantly to the STT switching process (in particular to the switching time and switching current density), which is mostly determined by the in-plane STT contribution. This conclusion is confirmed by finite temperature and finite writing pulse macrospin simulations of the current-field switching diagrams. It contrasts with the case of STT-switching in in-plane magnetized MTJ in which the field-like term also influences the switching critical current. This theoretical analysis was successfully applied to the interpretation of voltage-field STT switching diagrams experimentally measured on perpendicular MTJ pillars 36 nm in diameter, which exhibit macrospin-like behavior. The physical nonequivalence of Landau and Gilbert dissipation terms in presence of STT-induced dynamics is also discussed