A comparative study of three-terminal Hanle signals in CoFe/SiO2/n+-Si and Cu/SiO2/n+-Si tunnel junctions

Abstract

We performed three-terminal (3T) Hanle measurement for two types of sample series, CoFe/SiO2/n+-Si and Cu/SiO2/n+-Si, with various tunnel resistances. Clear Hanle signal and anomalous scaling between spin resistance-area product and tunnel resistance-area product were observed in CoFe/SiO2/n+-Si devices. In order to explore the origin of the Hanle signal and the impurity-assisted tunneling effect on the Hanle signal in our devices, Hanle measurement in Cu/SiO2/n+-Si devices was performed as well. However, no detectable Hanle signal was observed in Cu/SiO2/n+-Si, even though a lot of samples with various tunnel resistances were studied in wide temperature and bias voltage ranges. Through a comparative study, it is found that the impurity-assisted tunneling magnetoresistance mechanism would not play a dominant role in the 3T Hanle signal in CoFe/SiO2/n+-Si tunnel junctions, where the SiO2 was formed by plasma oxidation to minimize impurities.