Chemical properties and GMR improvement of specular spin valves with nano-oxide layers, formed in ambient mixed gases

Abstract

Specular spin valves (SVs) containing nano-oxide layers (NOLs) structured as substrate/seed/AF/P1/NOL/P2/Cu/F/NOL, have been fabricated. The NOLs were formed by natural oxidation in different ambient atmospheres of pure oxygen, oxygen/nitrogen and oxygen/argon gas mixtures. The fabrication conditions were optimized to enhance the magnetoresistance (MR) ratio, to suppress the interlayer coupling fields (Hf) between the free and pinned layers, to suppress the high interface density of the NOL, to ease the control of the NOL thickness and to form a smooth NOL/P2 interface for promoting specular electron scattering. The characteristics of our specular SVs are the MR ratio of 14.1%, the exchange bias field of 44–45 mT, and Hf weaker than 1.0 mT. The optimal conditions for oxidation time, total oxidation pressure and the annealing temperature were found to be 300 s, 0.14 Pa (oxygen/argon = 80/20) and 250°C, respectively. Also, the origin of thermal stability of MMn-based (M = Fe, Pt, Ir, etc) specular SVs has been explained in detail by chemical properties of NOL using secondary-ion mass spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy depth profile analyses. Thermal stability turns out to be caused by a decrease in MR ratios at high temperatures (>250°C), which is a serious problem for device applications using the SV structure as a high density read head device.