Transmission electron microscopy study of the Fe(001) | MgO(001) interface for magnetic tunnel junctions

Chao Wang*, Shouguo Wang, Amit Kohn, Roger C C Ward, Amanda K. Petford-Long

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is employed to characterize ex situ the interface between the bottom Fe (001) electrode and MgO (001) barrier in a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) deposited by molecular beam epitaxy. High resolution TEM images are compared with multislice-based simulations of oxidized and sharp interfaces to conclude that at least the part of the interface is not oxidized. In addition, the spacing between the Fe and O layers at the interface is measured and found to be comparable with theoretical calculations in the literature of sharp interfaces. This result offers a methodology to characterize the interface structure of MTJs, which is important to determine the magneto-transport properties of the device.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2779-2781
Number of pages3
JournalIEEE Transactions on Magnetics
Volume43
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2007

Funding

This work was supported by the U.K. Engineering and Physical Science Research Council. The authors are grateful to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for financial support and discussion with Dr. V. Lazarov, Dr. S.-Y. Choi, Dr. R. Schaeublin, Dr. J. Sloan, and Prof. A. I. Kirkland. A. K. Petford-Long acknowledges UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory (“Argonne”). Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Keywords

  • Electron microscopy
  • Epitaxial growth
  • Interface phenomena
  • Oxidation
  • Tunnel junction

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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