Decimal Tunneling Magnetoresistance States in Fe/GaAlAs/GaMnAs Magnetic Tunnel Junction

Abstract

We report the realization of ten stable tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) states in a single device. To achieve ten resistance states, we have used a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) structure that consists of two magnetic layers, which are Fe and GaMnAs ferromagnetic layers. Owing to the two in-plane magnetic easy axes that result from strong cubic anisotropies in both Fe and GaMnAs layers, noncollinear magnetic configurations between two magnetic layers were realized, in addition to the parallel and antiparallel configurations. Such noncollinear magnetic configurations provide stable intermediate TMR values between two extreme values corresponding parallel and antiparallel configurations. The number of stable TMR values was further increased by forming multidomain structures in the MTJ structure. We demonstrate that we can obtain up to ten stable TMR values, and they can be controlled by applying the appropriate magnetic field sequences.