Electrical study of NiFe/Al2O3/Si tunnel diodes for magnetic memories

Author

Benabderrahmane, Rabia ; Kanoun, Mehdi ; Bruyant, Nicolas ; Achard, Herve ; Baraduc, Claire ; Bsiesy, Ahmad

Author_Institution

SPINTEC\\INAC, CEA/CNRS, Grenoble, France

fYear

2008

fDate

14-17 Dec. 2008

Firstpage

204

Lastpage

207

Abstract

This work is focused on the electrical characterization of NiFe/Al₂O₃/Si tunnel diodes that can be used for spin injection into silicon. The effect of annealing on the electrical properties of the diodes has been studied by the analysis of the capacitance-voltage characteristics. This analysis shows that the Al₂O₃ densification annealing can largely decrease the Al₂O₃/Si interface state density bringing it to the state of the art values. Current-Voltage analysis shows a direct tunneling mechanism of transport through 2 nm alumina barrier. This result shows that Al₂O₃ has all the prerequisites to be used as a tunnel barrier for coherent spin injection into silicon.

Keywords

alumina; annealing; densification; elemental semiconductors; ferromagnetic materials; iron alloys; magnetic storage; magnetoelectronics; nickel alloys; silicon; spin polarised transport; tunnel diodes; NiFe-Al₂O₃-Si; alumina barrier; capacitance-voltage characteristics; coherent spin injection; current-voltage analysis; densification annealing; electrical characterization; interface state density; magnetic memory; size 2 nm; tunnel barrier; tunnel diodes; Aluminum oxide; Annealing; CMOS technology; Dielectrics; Random access memory; Schottky diodes; Semiconductor diodes; Silicon; Spin polarized transport; Temperature; MRAM; annealing; direct tunnelling model; interface defects; spintronics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microelectronics, 2008. ICM 2008. International Conference on

Conference_Location

Sharjah

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2369-9

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2370-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICM.2008.5393832

Filename

5393832