Experimental investigations of SiO2 based ferrite magnetic tunnel junction

Abstract

• CoFe 2 O 4 /SiO 2 /Co–NiFe 2 O 4 magnetic junction was fabricated using RF/DC sputtering. • Spin transport through nanostructure silicon oxide with ferrite as free and pinned layer is our first report. • Magnetization studies were done to justify the free layer and pinned layer for our multilayer. • Magnetoresistance behavior shows a sharp discriminating between parallel and antiparallel alignment with TMR value of 16%. We report experimental results of ferrite based magnetic tunnel junction. Ferrite junction and spin transport through SiO 2 were interesting since they can readily replace the conventional electronics. We fabricated a cobalt ferrite/SiO 2 /cobalt nickel ferrite based magnetic tunnel junction over a copper coated n-silicon substrate using a RF/DC magnetron sputtering. The tunneling magnetoresistance shows a very good response to applied field and we achieved a TMR of about 16%. Although theoretically it was predicted infinite TMR for half metallic ferromagnetic junction, the deviation was explained on the basis of incoherent scattering along the interfaces.