title: Thermally robust Mo/CoFeB/MgO trilayers with strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy.
abstract: The recent discovery of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) at the CoFeB/MgO interface has accelerated the development of next generation high-density non-volatile memories by utilizing perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions (p-MTJs). However, the insufficient interfacial PMA in the typical Ta/CoFeB/MgO system will not only complicate the p-MTJ optimization, but also limit the device density scalability. Moreover, the rapid decreases of PMA in Ta/CoFeB/MgO films with annealing temperature higher than 300°C will make the compatibility with CMOS integrated circuits a big problem. By replacing the Ta buffer layer with a thin Mo film, we have increased the PMA in the Ta/CoFeB/MgO structure by 20%. More importantly, the thermal stability of the perpendicularly magnetized (001)CoFeB/MgO films is greatly increased from 300°C to 425°C, making the Mo/CoFeB/MgO films attractive for a practical p-MTJ application.
authors: Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors: T
authors: T
authors: Liu
authors: Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Zhang
authors: Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors: J W
authors: JW
authors: Cai
authors: Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices, Department of Electronics, School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
authors: H Y
authors: HY
authors: Pan