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AIST TODAYNo.18 Autumn 2005 [ PDF:10.2MB ]

Contents List Feature : Leading the Chemical Processes for the 21st Century Research Hot Line In Brief

A high-performance tuneling magneto resistance device for a read head of hard disk drive

We have developed a high-performance magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device with magnesium-oxide as a tunneling barrier. The MTJ device shows low junction resistance and huge magnetoresistance ratio up to 140% at room temperature. It is expected that the MTJ device is applied to highly sensitive read head for ultrahigh-density hard disk drive (HDD) of the next generation.

Figure 1
Figure 1: Basic properties of MTJ device required for industrial applications. A higher magnetoresistance is required for all kinds of applications. Concerning the electric resistance of MTJ device, the read head application requires 0.1 ~ 4 Ω·µm2, and the MRAM application requires several 10 Ω·µm2 ~ several kΩ·µm2.

Figure 2
Figure 2: An electron microscopy image of the cross-section of the MTJ device.

Relational Information

AIST TODAY Vol.5,No.7 (2005) p.28-29

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