Half-metallic magnetism and the search for better spin valves
- Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, 2515 Speedway, Austin, Texas 78712 (United States)
We use a previously proposed theory for the temperature dependence of tunneling magnetoresistance to shed light on ongoing efforts to optimize spin valves. First, we show that a mechanism in which spin valve performance at finite temperatures is limited by uncorrelated thermal fluctuations of magnetization orientations on opposite sides of a tunnel junction is in good agreement with recent studies of the temperature-dependent magnetoresistance of high quality tunnel junctions with MgO barriers. Using this insight, we propose a simple formula which captures the advantages for spin-valve optimization of using materials with a high spin polarization of Fermi-level tunneling electrons, and of using materials with high ferromagnetic transition temperatures. We conclude that half-metallic ferromagnets can yield better spin-value performance than current elemental transition metal ferromagnet/MgO systems only if their ferromagnetic transition temperatures exceed ∼950 K.
- OSTI ID:
- 22314345
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 116, Issue 8; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-8979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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