Effect of electric-field on the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and strain properties in CoFeB/MgO magnetic tunnel junctions

摘要

In this article, we investigate the effect of electric-field on the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and strain properties in nanoscaled CoFeB/MgO magnetic tunnel junction using tunnel mag-netoresistance and piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) measurements, respectively. We show that while the PMA change under electric-field is consistent with the previous reports, the PFM data show that the applied electric-field induces strain in a nanoscaled MgO. We demonstrate that the development of compressive and tensile strains corresponding to different polarities of applied electric-field. We discuss the interplay between the electric-field controlled PMA and strain properties. Our results may accelerate the development of magnetoelectrically controlled spintronic devices for low-power and high-density magnetic data storage applications.