The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 16, 2021
Filed:
Feb. 14, 2019
Headway Technologies, Inc., Milpitas, CA (US);
Santiago Serrano Guisan, San Jose, CA (US);
Luc Thomas, San Jose, CA (US);
Jodi Mari Iwata, San Carlos, CA (US);
Guenole Jan, San Jose, CA (US);
Vignesh Sundar, Fremont, CA (US);
Headway Technologies, Inc., Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) is disclosed wherein a nitride diffusion barrier (NDB) has a L2/L1/NL or NL/L1/L2 configuration wherein NL is a metal nitride or metal oxynitride layer, L2 blocks oxygen diffusion from an adjoining Hk enhancing layer, and L1 prevents nitrogen diffusion from NL to the free layer (FL) thereby enhancing magnetoresistive ratio and FL thermal stability, and minimizing resistance x area product for the MTJ. NL is the uppermost layer in a bottom spin valve configuration, or is formed on a seed layer in a top spin valve configuration such that L2 and L1 are always between NL and the FL or pinned layer, respectively. In other embodiments, one or both of L1 and L2 are partially oxidized. Moreover, either L2 or L1 may be omitted when the other of L1 and L2 is partially oxidized. A spacer between the FL and L2 is optional.