Impact of Joule heating on the stability phase diagrams of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions

N. Strelkov (1, 2) , A. Chavent (1) , A. Timopheev (1) , R. Sousa (1) , I. L Prejbeanu (1) , L D Buda-Prejbeanu (1) , B. Dieny (1)

1 SPINTEC - SPINtronique et TEchnologie des Composants
2 MSU - Lomonosov Moscow State University

Measured switching voltage-field diagrams of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions exhibit unexpected behavior at high voltages associated with significant heating of the storage layer. The boundaries deviate from the critical lines corresponding to the coercive field, which contrasts with the theoretically predicted behavior of a standard macrospin-based model. Combining recent experimental studies of the temperature dependence of spin polarization and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, we are proposing a modified model. Our approach takes into account the Joule heating during the writing pulse, which reduces the spin polarization and the anisotropy, thereby reducing the spin torque efficiency and the coercive field during the switching. The numerical macrospin simulations based on this model are in agreement with our experimental measurements and consistent with the results derived from the linearization of Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation.

Domaines: Matière Condensée [cond-mat]

N. Strelkov, A. Chavent, A. Timopheev, R. Sousa, I. L Prejbeanu, et al.. Impact of Joule heating on the stability phase diagrams of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions. Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1998-2015), 2018, 98, pp.214410. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevB.98.214410⟩. ⟨hal-01949474⟩