Fabrication of Fully Epitaxial CoFe/MgO/CoFe Magnetic Tunnel Junctions on Ge(001) Substrates via a MgO Interlayer

Fully epitaxial magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with Co50Fe50 (CoFe) electrodes and a MgO barrier were fabricated on Ge(001) single-crystal substrates via a MgO interlayer. Microfabricated CoFe/MgO/CoFe MTJs with a 10-nm-thick MgO interlayer showed a high tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio of 218% at 293 K, which is encouraging for monolithic integration of MTJs and Ge field-effect transistors for constructing future-generation nonvolatile logic circuits featuring ultralow-power consumption. Furthermore, MTJs with even a decreased MgO interlayer thickness of 1.0 nm showed a relatively high TMR ratio of 110% at 293 K, suggesting the promise of heterostructures consisting of MTJ/MgO interlayer/Ge(001) as a key device structure for spin injection into a Ge channel from an MTJ.