Spin-dependent tunneling in magnetic tunnel junctions
Description
In this work I present results of a theoretical study of the intrinsic response of ferromagnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ's). The goal of the work has been to understand the underlying physics in order to describe the intrinsic portion of the observed behavior. Specifically, I present a free electron tunneling model which predicts that the magneto-conductance ratio (DeltaG/G) or tunneling magneto-resistance (TMR) in high quality MTJs is dominated by the intrinsic response. The model assumes an effective tunneling electronic structure which has been constructed from parameters extracted from first principles calculations and a simple barrier whose effective height and thickness are deduced from the experiments. This model does not utilize the polarization (P) of the density of states (DOS) as an input parameter, but rather calculates the conductance for each spin channel and configuration in order to calculate TMR directly. The process of matching spin-dependent tunneling states with spin-independent barrier states produces a spin-dependent T-matrix which is the main difference between this model and other prevalent models which have been built upon Julliere's model (M. Julliere, Phys. Lett. 54 225, 1975). The effect of bias is handled by increasing the chemical potential on one side of the barrier, and the effect of temperature is included via Fermi smearing and the temperature dependent magnetic band structure. The model predicts that MTJ's are quite sensitive to changes in the magnetic band structure. This explains both the large temperature dependence of TMR and the high sensitivity of MTJ's to magnetic fields. The model strongly supports the assertion that only a portion of the total DOS is relevant to spin-dependent tunneling (SDT) and that the bands which supply the tunneling electrons are essentially Stoner split. I conclude with a consideration of asymmetric TMR and a short first principles study of fcc magnetic alloys which gives some insight into the relative success of permalloy based MTJ's