Open AccessReliability of magnetic tunnel junctions with a spinel MgAl 2 O 4 film
Author(s) -
Choi C.M.,
Sukegawa H.,
Mitani S.,
Song Y.H.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
electronics letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.375
H-Index - 146
ISSN - 1350-911X
DOI - 10.1049/el.2016.3007
Subject(s) - spinel , materials science , stress (linguistics) , dielectric , reliability (semiconductor) , voltage , electrode , tunnel magnetoresistance , condensed matter physics , quantum tunnelling , breakdown voltage , dielectric strength , electrical engineering , optoelectronics , composite material , chemistry , metallurgy , physics , engineering , thermodynamics , linguistics , philosophy , power (physics) , layer (electronics)
We investigated the stress‐induced resistance drift and breakdown characteristics in MgAl 2 O 4 (MAO)‐based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with the MAO thickness of ∼0.9 nm. The occurrence of trap sites around the tunnel barrier–electrode interfaces was characterised via interval voltage stress (IVS) and constant voltage stress (CVS) experiments, in which the occurrence of trap sites affects the resistance drift in IVS and time‐dependent dielectric breakdown in CVS. The observed resistance drift ratios were almost the same for positive and negative applied voltages, indicating that the difference in the interface structure was negligibly small between the top and bottom MAO/CoFe interfaces in the MAO‐based MTJs. More interestingly, the resistance drift ratios were very low compared with the results of a previous study on MgO‐based MTJs. MAO‐based MTJs is likely to be an effective alternative that can be used to improve MTJ device reliability.