SPIN-TRANSFER MULTILAYER STACK CONTAINING MAGNETIC LAYERS WITH RESETTABLE MAGNETIZATION

摘要

A magnetic element (300) for a high-density memory array includes a resettable layer (304) and a storage layer (302). The resettable layer has a magnetization that is set in a selected direction by at least one externally generated magnetic field. The storage layer has at least one magnetic easy axis and a magnetization that changes direction based on the spin-transfer effect when a write current passes through the magnetic element. An alternative embodiment of the magnetic element includes an additional multilayer structure (409) formed from a tunneling barrier layer (410), a pinned magnetic layer (411) and an antiferromagnetic layer (412) that pins the magnetization of the pinned layer in a predetermined direction. Another alternative embodiment of the magnetic element includes an additional multilayer structure (509) that is formed from a tunneling barrier layer (514) and a second resettable layer (513) having a magnetic moment that is different from the magnetic moment of the resettable layer of the basic embodiment.