Giant tunneling magnetoresistance up to 410% at room temperature in fully epitaxial Co/MgO/Co magnetic tunnel junctions with bcc Co(001) electrodes

Fully epitaxial Co(001)/MgO(001)/Co(001) magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with metastable bcc Co(001) electrodes were fabricated with molecular beam epitaxy. The MTJs exhibited giant magnetoresistance (MR) ratios up to 410% at room temperature, the highest value reported to date. Temperature dependence of the MR ratio was observed to be very small compared with fully epitaxial Fe/MgO/Fe and textured CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB MTJs. The MR ratio of the Co/MgO/Co MTJ showed larger bias voltage dependence than that of the epitaxial Fe/MgO/Fe MTJs, which probably reflects the band structures of bcc Co and Fe for the k(parallel to)=0 direction.