title: Apparent spin polarization decay in Cu-dusted Co/Al2O3/Co tunnel junctions
abstract: Co/Al2O3/Co magnetic tunnel junctions with an interfacial Cu layer have been investigated with in situ growth characterization and ex situ magnetotransport measurements. Cu interlayers grown on Co give an approximately exponential decay of the tunneling magnetoresistance with xi approximately 0.26 nm while those grown on Al2O3 have a decay length of 0.70 nm. The difference in decay lengths can be explained by different growth morphologies, and in this way clarifies a present disagreement in the literature. For monolayer coverage of Cu, we show that the tunneling spin polarization is suppressed by at least a factor of 2 compared to Co and beyond approximately 5 ML it becomes vanishingly small.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics and COBRA, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: LeClair
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Swagten
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Kohlhepp
authors.lastname: van De Veerdonk RJ
authors.lastname: de Jonge WJ