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arXiv · 2301.04823

Cryogenic temperature deposition of high-performance CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions on 300 mm wafers

Abstract

We developed a cryogenic temperature deposition process for high-performance CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) on 300 mm thermally oxidized silicon wafers. The effect of the deposition temperature of the CoFeB layers on the nanostructure, magnetic and magneto-transport properties of the MTJs were investigated in detail. When CoFeB was deposited at 100 K, the MTJs exhibited a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) of 214 uJ/m2 and a voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) coefficient of -45 fJ/Vm, corresponding to 1.4- and 1.7-fold enhancements in PMA and VCMA, respectively, compared to the case of room-temperature deposition of CoFeB. The improvement in the MTJ properties was not simply due to the morphology of the MTJ films. The interface-sensitive magneto-transport properties indicated that interfacial qualities such as intermixing and oxidation states at the MgO/CoFeB interfaces were improved by the cryogenic temperature deposition. Cryogenic-temperature sputtering deposition is expected to be a standard manufacturing process for next-generation magnetoresistive random-access memory.

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Tomohiro Ichinose, Tatsuya Yamamoto, Takayuki Nozaki, Kay Yakushiji, Shingo Tamaru, Makoto Konoto, Shinji Yuasa. 2023-01-12. Cryogenic temperature deposition of high-performance CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions on 300 mm wafers. https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.04823

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