Magnetic properties of epitaxial discontinuous Fe/MgO multilayers

We report magnetic, dynamic and transport properties of discontinuous metal-insulator multilayers Fe/MgO grown on amorphous Corning® glass and single-crystalline MgO (001) substrates. The films of structure Substrate/MgO (3 nm)/[Fe (0.6 nm)/MgO (3.0 nm)]×10 were prepared in ultra-high vacuum conditions using Pulsed Laser Deposition. It was shown that conditions of epitaxial growth are favorable for MgO substrates. As a result a substantial increase of tunneling magnetoresistance caused by spin-filtering effect was observed and reasonably theoretically explained. The value of TMR ̃ 9.2% at room temperature in 18 kOe magnetic field is three times higher comparing to that for the samples grown on Corning® glass substrates. Copyright © 2012 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.Peer Reviewe