Full Electric Control of Exchange Bias at Room Temperature by Resistive Switching

• DOI: 10.1002/adma.201801885
• Publication Date: 2018-06-12T05:51:13Z
• Authors: Lujun Wei; Zhenzhong Hu; Guanxiang Du; Yuan Yuan; Ji Wang; Hongqing Tu; Biao You; Shiming Zhou; Jiangtao Qu; Hongwei Liu; Rongkun Zheng; Yong Hu; Jun Du
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 7. Clean energy; 01 natural sciences

AbstractElectric control of exchange bias (EB) is of vital importance in energy‐efficient spintronics. Although many attempts have been made during the past decade, each has its own limitations for operation and thus falls short of full direct and reversible electrical control of EB at room temperature. Here, a novel approach is proposed by virtue of unipolar resistive switching to accomplish this task in a Si/SiO2/Pt/Co/NiO/Pt device. By applying certain voltages, the device displays obvious EB in the high‐resistance‐state while negligible EB in the low‐resistance state. Conductive filaments forming in the NiO layer and rupturing near the Co–NiO interface are considered to play dominant roles in determining the combined resistive switching and EB phenomena. This work paves a new way for designing multifunctional and nonvolatile magnetoelectric random access memory devices.