AVS 50th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Wednesday Sessions
       Session MI-WeM

Invited Paper MI-WeM5
Spin-transfer Induced Magnetic Switching in Batch-fabricated sub-100 nm Spin-valves

Wednesday, November 5, 2003, 9:40 am, Room 316

Session: Current-Induced Magnetic Switching and Excitations
Presenter: J.Z. Sun, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Authors: J.Z. Sun, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
T.S. Kuan, SUNY at Albany
M.J. Rooks, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
J.M.E. Harper, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and University of New Hampshire
R.A. Carruthers, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
S.M. Rossnagel, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
R.H. Koch, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Correspondent: Click to Email
A hard-mask stencil method is developed for the efficient fabrication of sub-100nm current-perpendicular spin-valve junctions with low contact resistance. The approach uses a trilayer template. The templated substrate is batch fabricated first with the junction features defined by a top stencil layer and an undercut in the insulator. The spin-valve thin film stack is deposited afterwards into the stencil, with the insulator undercut providing the necessary isolation of magnetic exchange coupling. By placing electron-beam lithography at the very beginning of the process before the deposition of the magnetic thin films, this approach improves the turnaround time for materials optimization in nanostructures. Using this approach, spin-transfer induced magnetic switching and magnetic excitation are observed for junctions down to 50nm x 100nm in size.