Ultra-Low Switching Energy And Scaling In Electric-Field-Controlled Nanoscale Magnetic Tunnel Junctions With High Resistance-Area Product

We report electric-field-induced switching with write energies down to 6 fJ/ bit for switching times of 0.5 ns, in nanoscale perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with high resistance-area product and diameters down to 50 nm. The ultra-low switching energy is made possible by a thick MgO barrier that ensures negligible spin-transfer torque contributions, along with a reduction of the Ohmic dissipation. We find that the switching voltage and time are insensitive to the junction diameter for high-resistance MTJs, a result accounted for by a macrospin model of purely voltage-induced switching. The measured performance enables integration with same-size CMOS transistors in compact memory and logic integrated circuits. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.