Ferrimagnetic Heusler tunnel junctions with fast spin-transfer torque switching enabled by low magnetization

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2403.08112
• Publication Date: 2025-01-03
• Authors: Chirag Garg; Panagiotis Ch. Fi...; null Ikhtiar; Yari Ferrante; See-Hun Yang; Brian Hughes; Charles T. Rettner; Timothy Phung; Sergey Faleev; Teya Topuria; Mahesh G. Samant; Jaewoo Jeong; Stuart S. P. Parkin
• Keywords: Condensed Matter - Materials Science; Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci); FOS: Physical sciences

AbstractMagnetic random-access memory that uses magnetic tunnel junction memory cells is a high-performance, non-volatile memory technology that goes beyond traditional charge-based memories. Today, its speed is limited by the high magnetization of the memory storage layer. Here we prepare magnetic tunnel junction memory devices with a low magnetization ferrimagnetic Heusler alloy Mn3Ge as the memory storage layer on technologically relevant amorphous substrates using a combination of a nitride seed layer and a chemical templating layer. We switch the magnetic state of the storage layer with nanosecond long write pulses at a reliable write error rate of 10−7 and detect a tunnelling magnetoresistance of 87% at ambient temperature. These results provide a strategy towards lower write switching currents using ferrimagnetic Heusler materials and, therefore, to the scaling of high-performance magnetic random-access memories beyond those nodes possible with ferromagnetic memory layers.