AVS 50th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Monday Sessions
       Session MI-MoA

Invited Paper MI-MoA5
Quantum-size Effect of Tunneling Magnetoresistance in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions

Monday, November 3, 2003, 3:20 pm, Room 316

Session: Magnetic Recording and Magnetoresistive Structures
Presenter: S. Yuasa, AIST and PREST-JST, Japan
Authors: S. Yuasa, AIST and PREST-JST, Japan
T. Nagahama, AIST and CREST-JST, Japan
Y. Suzuki, AIST and CREST-JST, Japan
Correspondent: Click to Email
We fabricated magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with single-crystal bottom electrodes and observed new phenomena such as the crystal-orientation dependence of the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) effect,@footnote 1@ the quantum-size effect of TMR,@footnote 2@ and the spin-polarized resonant tunneling.@footnote 3@ Here, we report the results on three types of MTJs with a single-crystal bottom electrode; (i) MTJ with an ultrathin ferromagnetic electrode, (ii) MTJ with an ultrathin nonmagnetic electrode grown on a ferromagnetic layer, and (iii) MTJ with an antiferromagnetic electrode grown on a ferromagnetic layer. The results are discussed in terms of spin lifetime of tunneling electrons. @FootnoteText@@footnote 1@S. Yuasa et al.: Europhys. Lett. 52, 344 (2000). @footnote 2@T. Nagahama, S. Yuasa, Y. Suzuki, E. Tamura: Appl. Phys. Lett. 79, 4381 (2001). @footnote 3@S. Yuasa, T. Nagahama, Y. Suzuki: Science 297, 234 (2002).