Electric-field effects on thickness dependent magnetic anisotropy of sputtered MgO/Co40Fe40B20/Ta structures

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of applied electric field EG on thickness dependent magnetic anisotropy of sputtered Co40Fe40B20 sandwiched with MgO and Ta. The range of CoFeB thickness explored is 2 nm and below. As the thickness is reduced, the easy axis of magnetization becomes perpendicular from in-plane. We show that perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of in-plane samples and coercivity of perpendicular samples can be modified by applying EG at room temperature. Furthermore, superparamagnetic behavior is observed for CoFeB layers with further reduced thickness below ≈0.9 nm, where electric-field effect is also observed below their blocking temperature.