GMR/TMR膜作製における膜表面処理技術

概要

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This paper describes surface treatment techniques, such as plasma treatment and oxygen exposure, for preparation of GMR and TMR films. We found that when an oxygen exposure process is applied on a Cu spacer layer in GMR film, the magnetoresistance MR ratio and interlayer coupling field are improved from 15.4% to 16.3% and from -5 Oe to -13 Oe, respectively. In TMR film, both plasma treatment and oxygen exposure processes improve the MR ratio from 6.8% to more than 27% while slightly increasing the resistance area product RA from 3.2 Ω-μm^2 to about 8.0 Ω-μm^2. We also found that the interlayer coupling field was reduced from about 90 Oe to less than 35 Oe. A surface morphology study using AFM showed that a plasma treatment process applied before Al film deposition reduces the surface roughness of the Al-oxide barrier layer. We suggest that this is the dominant factor in the origin of MR ratio improvement and interlayer coupling field reduction in TMR film. The above re sults show that the plasma treatment and oxygen exposure techniques are effective in improving the performance of GMR and TMR films.
社団法人日本磁気学会の論文
2004-11-01