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Ultra low current density switching via voltage
Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is a promising candidate for beyond-CMOS memory and logic technologies and has been developed for commercial purposes in recent years (1). The key building block of commercial MRAM is magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), which is operated through either spin transfer torque (STT) or spin-orbit torque (SOT). STT-based MRAM benefits from higher cell density but suffers from reliability and energy-efficiency due to the current flow through the MTJ whereas SOT-based MRAM has superior reliability, endurance, and faster switching times (2). For realizing the ultralow switching current density and ultrafast switching MRAM cell, two or more driving forces are normally employed to switch MTJs. One acts as the principal switching mechanism and the other serves to assist in switching. For example, ultrafast switching speed of ~ 0.27 ns has been reported in SOT switching of perpendicular MTJs (p-MTJs) assisted with STT and voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA), however, the key challenge is still large switching current densities (Jc) ~ 2.0×108 A/cm2 for SOT and ~ 2.3×106 A/cm2 for STT (3).
Voltage controlled exchange coupling (VCEC) occurs in perpendicular MTJs (p-MTJs) with synthetic antiferromagnetic (SAF) free layers and can realize bidirectional switching at switching current densities as low as 1 x 105 A/cm2 (4). In this work, we designed and fabricated the p-MTJ stacks with SAF free layers on bi-layered spin Hall channels (Ta/Pd). The p-MTJ stacks were patterned into 150-nm pillars, and MTJ devices are switched through combination of SOT and VCEC effects, as illustrated in Fig. 1(a). Bidirectional switching of p-MTJs were obtained with current densities as low as 3×103 A/cm2 for VCEC and 6.8×107 A/cm2 for SOT, as shown in Fig. 1(b), where the VCEC switching current density is two orders of magnitude lower than the reported value for VCEC-only switching 4. Furthermore, by studying the contribution of SOT and VCEC for MTJ switching, it is found that SOT plays a crucial role for ultralow-energy VCEC bidirectional magnetization switching.
References:
(1) J.-P. Wang et al, DAC '17: Proceedings of the 54th Annual Design Automation Conference 16, pp. 1-6 (2017).
(2) Y. C. Liao et al, IEEE J. Explor. Solid-State Computat. 6, pp. 9-17 (2020).
(3) E. Grimaldi et al, Nat. Nanotechnol. 15, pp. 111-117 (2020).
(4) D. Zhang et al, Nano Lett., 22, pp. 622-629 (2022).