All-Electrical Operation of a Curie Switch at Room Temperature

We present all-electrical operation of a FexCr1-x-based Curie switch at room temperature. More specifically, we study the current-induced thermally driven transition from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic Magnetometry measurements at different temperatures show that the transition from the ferromagnetic to the antiferromagnetic coupling at zero field is observed at approximately 325 K. Analytical modeling confirms that the observed temperature-dependent transition from indirect ferromagnetic to indirect antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling originates from the modification of the effective interlayer exchange constant through the ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition in the Fe17.5Cr82.5 spacer with minor contributions from the thermally driven variations of the magnetization and magnetic anisotropy of the Fe layers. Room-temperature current-in-plane magnetotransport measurements on the patterned Fe/Cr/Fe17.5Cr82.5/Cr/Fe strips show the transition from the "low-resistance" parallel to the "highresistance" antiparallel remanent magnetization configuration, upon increased probing current density. Quantitative comparison of the switching fields, obtained by magnetometry and magnetotransport, confirms that the Joule heating is the main mechanism responsible for the observed current-induced resistive switching.