Shishou Kang

Spin memristive magnetic tunnel junctions with CoO-ZnO nano composite barrier

The spin memristive devices combining memristance and tunneling magnetoresistance have promising applications in multibit nonvolatile data storage and artificial neuronal computing. However, it is a great challenge for simultaneous realization of large memristance and magnetoresistance in one nanoscale junction, because it is very hard to find a proper spacer layer which not only serves as good insulating layer for tunneling magnetoresistance but also easily switches between high and low resistance states under electrical field. Here we firstly propose to use nanon composite barrier layers of CoO-ZnO to fabricate the spin memristive Co/CoO-ZnO/Co magnetic tunnel junctions. The bipolar resistance switching ratio is high up to 90, and the TMR ratio of the high resistance state gets to 8% at room temperature, which leads to three resistance states. The bipolar resistance switching is explained by the metal-insulator transition of CoO1−v layer due to the migration of oxygen ions between CoO1−v and ZnO1−v.

Structural and magnetic properties of patterned perpendicular media with linearly graded anisotropy

L10-FePt thin films with linearly distributed anisotropy were fabricated by continuously varying substrate temperatures from 650 °C to 290 °C. An average ordering parameter S = 0.6 was obtained. The hysteresis loop has a clear bow-tie shape with low remanence and coercivity before patterning. The patterned nanopillar arrays exhibit an enhancement in both remanence and coercivity. Dynamic coercivity measurement shows that the nanopillar arrays with linearly graded anisotropy have a relatively small intrinsic coercivity and a relatively high value of the figure of merit. The switching field exhibits a narrow distribution, which indicates a strong coupling between soft and hard phases in nanopillar arrays with graded anisotropy.

Spin polarization of Zn1−xCoxO probed by magnetoresistance

The spin polarization of Zn0.32Co0.68O1−v (v means oxygen vacancies) concentrated magnetic semiconductor (CMS) films was extracted from measurements of tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR), and spin-dependent variable range hopping, respectively. A TMR ratio of 19.1% was observed at 2 K in Co/ZnO/Zn0.32Co0.68O1−v magnetic tunnel junctions, which gives a low limit of the spin polarization of 25% in the Zn0.32Co0.68O1−v CMS. The TMR decreases with increasing temperature and bias voltage mainly due to the tunneling via localized impurity states in the barrier. By contrast, the spin polarization of the Zn0.32Co0.68O1−v CMS was estimated to be 36.1% by spin-dependent variable range hopping.

Magnetoresistance and electron-hole exchange interaction in (Co1-xInx)2O3-v concentrated ferromagnetic semiconductors

Systematic studies of electrical transport properties of (Co1-xInx)2O3-v concentrated ferromagnetic semiconductors were performed. Quantitative analysis demonstrated that spin dependent variable range hopping dominated the low temperature transport behavior. Moreover, it was found that ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic coupling of electron-hole pair generated during the variable range hopping process is responsible for the negative or positive magnetoresistance, respectively. Our results not only illustrate the connection between magnetoresistance and electron-hole exchange interaction but also provide a unique method to detect the exchange interaction of electron-hole pair.

Large rectification magnetoresistance in nonmagnetic Al/Ge/Al heterojunctions.

Magnetoresistance and rectification are two fundamental physical properties of heterojunctions and respectively have wide applications in spintronics devices. Being different from the well known various magnetoresistance effects, here we report a brand new large magnetoresistance that can be regarded as rectification magnetoresistance: the application of a pure small sinusoidal alternating-current to the nonmagnetic Al/Ge Schottky heterojunctions can generate a significant direct-current voltage, and this rectification voltage strongly varies with the external magnetic field. We find that the rectification magnetoresistance in Al/Ge Schottky heterojunctions is as large as 250% at room temperature, which is greatly enhanced as compared with the conventional magnetoresistance of 70%. The findings of rectification magnetoresistance open the way to the new nonmagnetic Ge-based spintronics devices of large rectification magnetoresistance at ambient temperature under the alternating-current due to the simultaneous implementation of the rectification and magnetoresistance in the same devices.

Engineering optical mode ferromagnetic resonance in FeCoB films with ultrathin Ru insertion

Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) in soft magnetic films (SMFs) to a large extent determines the maximum working frequency of magnetic devices. The FMR frequency (fr) in an optical mode is usually much higher than that in the corresponding acoustic mode for exchange coupled ferromagnet/nonmagnet/ferromagnet (FM/NM/FM) trilayers. In this study, we prepared a 50 nm FeCoB film with uniaxial magnetic anisotropy (UMA), showing a high acoustic mode fr of 4.17 GHz. When an ultrathin Ru spacer was inserted in the very middle of the UMA-FeCoB film, the zero-field FMR was abruptly switched from an acoustic mode to an optical one with fr dramatically enhanced from 4.17 GHz to 11.32 GHz. Furthermore, the FMR mode can be readily tuned to optical mode only, acoustic mode only, or double mode by simply varying the applied filed, which provides a flexible way to design multi-band microwave devices.

Impact of interfacial effects on ferroelectric resistance switching of Au/BiFeO3/Nb:SrTiO3(100) Schottky junctions

Direct evidence of purely interfacial effects on resistance switching is demonstrated in Au/BiFeO3/Nd:SrTiO3(001) (Au/BFO/NSTO) Schottky junctions by reducing the thickness of ferroelectric interlayer BFO. The Au/BFO/NSTO junction shows large current rectification and hysteretic resistive switching behavior without any electroforming process. The conduction mechanism is dominated by interface-limited Fowler–Nordheim (FN) tunneling through a potential barrier formed at the BFO/NSTO interface. Measurements of polarization switching dynamics and capacitance–voltage characteristics provide direct evidence that the resistance switching in the Au/BFO/NSTO junction is ferroelectric and interfacially limited. The observed resistance switching behavior can be attributed to the ferroelectric polarization modulation of the barrier and depletion width of the p–n junction formed at the BFO/NSTO interface.

Decoupled scenario between the conductive carriers and the ferromagnetism in epitaxial Zn0.85−xMgxCo0.15O thin films

A series of Zn0.85−xMgxCo0.15O (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.3) thin films were fabricated by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy to investigate the correlation between the electrical transport properties and the ferromagnetism. It is observed that the saturation magnetization remains almost unchanged even though the resistivity of the Zn0.85−xMgxCo0.15O films dramatically increases more than 6 orders with increasing Mg concentration. Moreover, the absence of detectable anomalous Hall effects and very small magnetoresistance in the films reveal the absence of spin polarization of conductive carriers and very weak spin-dependent scattering or tunneling processes. All these results suggest that the conductive carriers are decoupled with the ferromagnetism in the Zn0.85−xMgxCo0.15O films.

Effect of hydrogenation on transport and magnetic properties in homogeneous amorphous MnxGe1−x:H films

Homogeneous amorphous MnxGe1−x:H films were synthesized under thermal nonequilibrium condition by magnetron co-sputtering technology with hydrogen in Ar atmosphere. Compared to the MnxGe1−x films without hydrogen, the MnxGe1−x:H films with hydrogen show higher concentration of hole carriers, larger conductivity, and higher saturation magnetization. Moreover, it was found that the anomalous Hall resistivity is proportional to the perpendicular magnetization. These electrical and magnetic properties indicate that the ferromagnetism of the MnxGe1−x:H films is intrinsic ferromagnetism mediated by the spin-polarized hole carriers.

Dynamic Magnetic Susceptibility and Electrical Detection of Ferromagnetic Resonance

The dynamic magnetic susceptibility of magnetic materials near ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) is very important in interpreting the dc voltage obtained in its electrical detection. Based on the causality principle and the assumption that the usual microwave absorption lineshape of a homogeneous magnetic material around FMR is Lorentzian, the general forms of the dynamic magnetic susceptibility of an arbitrary sample and the corresponding dc voltage lineshapes of its electrical detection were obtained. Our main findings are as follows. (1) The dynamic magnetic susceptibility is not a Polder tensor for a material with an arbitrary magnetic anisotropy. The two off-diagonal matrix elements of the tensor near FMR are not, in general, opposite to each other. However, the linear response coefficient of the magnetization to the total radio frequency (rf) field (the sum of the external and internal rf fields due to precessing magnetization is a quantity which cannot be measured directly) is a Polder tensor. This may explain why the two off-diagonal susceptibility matrix elements were always wrongly assumed to be opposite to each other in almost all analyses. (2) The frequency dependence of dynamic magnetic susceptibility near FMR is fully characterized by six real numbers, while its field dependence is fully characterized by seven real numbers. (3) A recipe of how to determine these numbers by standard microwave absorption measurements for a sample with an arbitrary magnetic anisotropy is proposed. Our results allow one to unambiguously separate the contribution of the anisotropic magnetoresistance to the dc voltage signals from the anomalous Hall effect. With these results, one can reliably extract the information of spin pumping and the inverse spin-Hall effect, and determine the spin-Hall angle. (4) In the case that resonance frequency is not sensitive to the applied static magnetic field, the field dependence of the matrix elements of dynamic magnetic susceptibility, as well as the dc voltage, may have another non-resonance broad peak. Thus, one should be careful in interpreting the observed peaks.