Applications of spin dependent transport materials

Newly developed materials that exhibit large changes in effective resistance with applied fields are being put to practical use. Magnetic multilayers with giant magnetoresistance (GMR) and spin dependent tunnelling (SDT) structures are being used in magnetic field sensors. Spin valves are being sold in read heads for hard drives and galvanic isolators. Both spin valves and SDT structures are being used in non-volatile random access memory development. After a brief introduction to these materials, the development of their uses in sensors, read heads, isolators and non-volatile memory are summarized. GMR magnetic field sensors represent a small, but growing market. SDT sensors have the potential to sense very small fields (to 1 pT). Spin valve read heads have enabled very high aerial packing densities for hard drives, up to 24 Gbits per square inch. GMR isolators can be used to duplicate the function of opto-isolators, but at much higher speeds and packing densities. Application of these materials to non-volatile random access memory could result in speeds and densities of semiconductor memory with the non-volatility of hard disk drives. Future directions in this field indicate a merging of semiconductor and these new magnetic materials.

[1]  Effect of write field rise times on the switching thresholds of pseudo spin valve memory cells , 1999 .

[2]  S. Cardoso,et al.  Ion beam deposition and oxidation of spin dependent tunnel junctions , 1999, IEEE International Magnetics Conference.

[3]  Kinder,et al.  Large magnetoresistance at room temperature in ferromagnetic thin film tunnel junctions. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[4]  Dieny,et al.  Perpendicular hot electron spin-valve effect in a new magnetic field sensor: The spin-valve transistor. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[5]  Anita Fink,et al.  Picotesla field sensor design using spin-dependent tunneling devices , 1998 .

[6]  L. J. Schwee,et al.  The concept and initial studies of a crosstie random access memory (CRAM) , 1982 .

[7]  Etienne,et al.  Giant magnetoresistance of (001)Fe/(001)Cr magnetic superlattices. , 1988, Physical review letters.

[8]  J. M. Daughton,et al.  Giant magnetoresistance in narrow stripes , 1992 .

[9]  Parkin,et al.  Oscillations in exchange coupling and magnetoresistance in metallic superlattice structures: Co/Ru, Co/Cr, and Fe/Cr. , 1990, Physical review letters.

[10]  J. M. Daughton,et al.  Magnetic Tunneling Applied to Memory (Invited) , 1997 .

[11]  Jaquelin K. Spong,et al.  Giant magnetoresistive spin valve bridge sensor , 1996 .

[12]  Mark H. Kryder,et al.  Spin valves exchange biased by Co/Ru/Co synthetic antiferromagnets , 1998 .

[13]  R. S. Beech,et al.  Magnetic field sensors using GMR multilayer , 1994 .

[14]  D. Awschalom,et al.  Electron Spin and Optical Coherence in Semiconductors , 1999 .

[15]  A. Pohm,et al.  Bias Field And End Effects On The Switching Thresholds Of "Pseudo Spin Valve" Memory Cells , 1997, 1997 IEEE International Magnetics Conference (INTERMAG'97).

[16]  Jian-Gang Zhu,et al.  The effect of end and edge shape on the performance of pseudo-spin valve memories , 1998 .

[17]  Bernard Dieny,et al.  Magnetotransport properties of magnetically soft spin‐valve structures (invited) , 1991 .

[18]  Jack I. Raffel,et al.  A Proposal for an Associative Memory Using Magnetic Films , 1964, IEEE Trans. Electron. Comput..

[19]  J. Fernandez‐de‐Castro,et al.  Permanent magnet stabilization of an overlaid MR head , 1996 .

[20]  G. B. Granley,et al.  Projected applications, status and plans for Honeywell high density, high performance, nonvolatile memory , 1996, Proceedings of Nonvolatile Memory Technology Conference.

[21]  Anita Fink,et al.  Pseudo spin valve MRAM cells with sub-micrometer critical dimension , 1998 .

[22]  Y. Mizoshita,et al.  Spin-valve read heads with NiFe/Co/sub 90/Fe/sub 10/ layers for 5 Gbit/in/sup 2/ density recording , 1996 .

[23]  Quadrupled nondestructive outputs from magnetoresistive memory cells using reversed word fields , 1990 .

[24]  Grünberg,et al.  Novel magnetoresistance effect in layered magnetic structures: Theory and experiment. , 1990, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[25]  J. Daughton.  Magnetoresistive memory technology , 1992 .

[26]  C. Tsang,et al.  Design, fabrication and testing of spin-valve read heads for high density recording , 1994 .

[27]  Mark Johnson,et al.  Hybrid ferromagnet-semiconductor nonvolatile gate , 1998 .

[28]  Parkin,et al.  Fluctuation-dissipation relation for giant magnetoresistive 1/f noise. , 1993, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.