Magnetic stability under magnetic cycling of MgO-based magnetic tunneling junctions with an exchange-biased synthetic antiferromagnetic pinned layer

We investigate the magnetic stability and endurance of MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with an exchange-biased synthetic antiferromagnetic (SAF) pinned layer. When a uniaxially cycling switching field is applied along the easy axis of the free magnetic layer, the magnetoresistance varies only by 1.7% logarithmically with the number of cycles, while no such change appears in the case of a rotating field. This observation is consistent with the effect of the formation and motion of domain walls in the free layer, which create significant stray fields within the pinned hard layer. Unlike in previous studies, the decay we observed only occurs during the first few starting cycles (< 20), at which point there is no further variance in all performance parameters up to 10(7) cycles. Exchange-biased SAF structure is ideally suited for solid-state magnetic sensors and magnetic memory devices. (C) 2016 Author(s).