Type-Y magnetic tunnel junctions with CoFeB doped tungsten as spin current source
Mingkun Zhao, Ran Zhang, Caihua Wan, Xuming Luo, Yu Zhang, Wenqing He, Y. Z. Wang, Wenlong Yang, Guoqiang Yu, Xiufeng Han
Abstract
Spin–orbit torque magnetic tunnel junctions (SOT-MTJs) with high tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio and high energy-efficiency are crucial for the development of SOT-magnetic random-access memory and other SOT devices. Here, the SOT-MTJs doped with an ultrathin layer of 0.2 nm CoFeB in the W writing line are fabricated, and the TMR ratio of the updated MTJs is up to 179%. Meanwhile, the SOT efficiency of the W layer doped with magnetic atoms (∼0.149) is weakly dependent on the doping, manifesting the intrinsic mechanism of the W layer in generating the spin Hall effect. This study shows promise of the magnetic-atom doped W/CoFeB/MgO/synthetic antiferromagnetic stacks to achieve high TMR and efficient type-Y SOT devices.