Linear nanometric tunnel junction sensors with exchange pinned sensing layer

Highly sensitive nanosensors with high spatial resolution provide the necessary features for high accuracy imaging of isolated magnetic nanoparticles. In this work, we report the fabrication and characterization of MgO-barrier magnetic tunnel junction nanosensors, with two exchange-pinned electrodes. The perpendicular magnetization configuration for field sensing is set using a two-step annealing process, where the second annealing temperature was optimized to yield patterned sensors responses with improved linearity. The optimized circular nanosensors show sensitivities up to 0.1%/Oe, larger than previously reported for nanometric sensors and comparable to micrometric spin-valves. Our strategy avoids the use of external permanent biasing or demagnetizing fields (large for smaller structures) to achieve a linear response, enabling the control of the linear operation range using only the stack and thus providing a small footprint device. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.