TY - JOUR

T1 - Interlayer exchange coupling in Fe/MgO/Fe magnetic tunnel junctions

AU - Katayama, T.

AU - Yuasa, S.

AU - Velev, J.

AU - Zhuravlev, M. Ye

AU - Jaswal, S. S.

AU - Tsymbal, E. Y.

PY - 2006/9/21

Y1 - 2006/9/21

N2 - Interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) in fully epitaxial Fe/MgO/Fe(001) tunnel junctions with wedge-shaped MgO layers is measured at room temperature from the unidirectional shift of the Kerr hysteresis loop. It is found that the IEC is antiferromagnetic for small MgO thickness but changes sign at 0.8 nm. Ab initio calculations of IEC show that this behavior can be explained by the presence of O vacancies in the MgO barrier which makes IEC antiferromagnetic for thin barriers. With increasing MgO thickness the resonance contribution to IEC from localized defect states is reduced resulting in the ferromagnetic coupling typical for perfect MgO barriers.

AB - Interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) in fully epitaxial Fe/MgO/Fe(001) tunnel junctions with wedge-shaped MgO layers is measured at room temperature from the unidirectional shift of the Kerr hysteresis loop. It is found that the IEC is antiferromagnetic for small MgO thickness but changes sign at 0.8 nm. Ab initio calculations of IEC show that this behavior can be explained by the presence of O vacancies in the MgO barrier which makes IEC antiferromagnetic for thin barriers. With increasing MgO thickness the resonance contribution to IEC from localized defect states is reduced resulting in the ferromagnetic coupling typical for perfect MgO barriers.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33748691834&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1063/1.2349321

DO - 10.1063/1.2349321

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:33748691834

VL - 89

JO - Applied Physics Letters

JF - Applied Physics Letters

SN - 0003-6951

IS - 11

M1 - 112503

ER -