Journal
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
Volume 101, Issue 20, Pages -Publisher
AMER INST PHYSICS
DOI: 10.1063/1.4766351
Keywords
annealing; boron alloys; cobalt alloys; diffusion; iron alloys; magnesium compounds; magnetic tunnelling; magnetoelectronics; photoemission; tantalum; X-ray spectroscopy
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Funding
- Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division, of the U.S. Department of Energy [DE-AC02-05CH11231]
- Army Research Office [W911-NF-09-1-0398]
- Nanotechnology Network Project
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan
- FIRST of JSPS
- Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES)
- US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [24560425, 23560033] Funding Source: KAKEN
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The CoFeB/MgO system shows promise as a magnetic tunnel junction with perpendicular magnetization and low critical current densities for spin-torque driven magnetization switching. The distribution of B after annealing is believed to be critical to performance. We have studied the distribution of B in a Ta/Co0.2Fe0.6B0.2/MgO sample annealed at 300 degrees C for 1 h with standing-wave hard x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (SW-HXPS). Comparing experimental rocking curve data to x-ray optical calculations indicates diffusion of 19.5% of the B uniformly into the MgO and of 23.5% into a thin TaB interface layer. SW-HXPS is effective for probing depth distributions in such spintronic structures. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4766351]
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