P. V. Ong

Thermally stable voltage-controlled perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in Mo|CoFeB|MgO structures

We study voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) and other magnetic properties in annealed Mo|CoFeB|MgO layered structures. The interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) is observed to increase with annealing over the studied temperature range, and a VCMA coefficient of about 40 fJ/V-m is sustained after annealing at temperatures as high as 430 °C. Ab initio electronic structure calculations of interfacial PMA as a function of strain further show that strain relaxation may lead to the increase of interfacial PMA at higher annealing temperatures. Measurements also show that there is no significant VCMA and interfacial PMA dependence on the CoFeB thickness over the studied range, which illustrates the interfacial origin of the anisotropy and its voltage dependence, i.e., the VCMA effect. The high thermal annealing stability of Mo|CoFeB|MgO structures makes them compatible with advanced CMOS back-end-of-line processes, and will be important for integration of magnetoelectric random access memory into on-chip embedded applications.

Electric-field-driven magnetization switching and nonlinear magnetoelasticity in Au/FeCo/MgO heterostructures

Voltage-induced switching of magnetization, as opposed to current-driven spin transfer torque switching, can lead to a new paradigm enabling ultralow-power and high density instant-on nonvolatile magnetoelectric random access memory (MeRAM). To date, however, a major bottleneck in optimizing the performance of MeRAM devices is the low voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) efficiency (change of interfacial magnetic anisotropy energy per unit electric field) leading in turn to high switching energy and write voltage. In this work, employing ab initio electronic structure calculations, we show that epitaxial strain, which is ubiquitous in MeRAM heterostructures, gives rise to a rich variety of VCMA behavior with giant VCMA coefficient (~1800 fJ V−1m−1) in Au/FeCo/MgO junction. The heterostructure also exhibits a strain-induced spin-reorientation induced by a nonlinear magnetoelastic coupling. The results demonstrate that the VCMA behavior is universal and robust in magnetic junctions with heavy metal caps across the 5d transition metals and that an electric-field-driven magnetic switching at low voltage is achievable by design. These findings open interesting prospects for exploiting strain engineering to harvest higher efficiency VCMA for the next generation MeRAM devices.

Strain control magnetocrystalline anisotropy of Ta/FeCo/MgO heterostructures

Using ab initio electronic structure calculations, we have investigated the effect of epitaxial strain on magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA) of Ta/FeCo/MgO heterostructure. At small expansive strains on the FeCo layer, the system exhibits perpendicular MCA (PMA). Strain not only has a profound effect on the value of MCA but also induces a switching of magnetic easy axis. Analysis of the energy- and k-resolved distribution of orbital characters of the minority-spin band reveals that a significant contribution to PMA at zero strain arises from the spin-orbit coupling between occupied dx2−y2 and unoccupied dxy states, derived from Fe at the FeCo/MgO interface. The strain effect is attributed to strain-induced shifts of spin-orbit coupled d-states. Our work demonstrates that strain engineering can open a viable pathway towards tailoring magnetic properties for spintronic applications.