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:
Apr. 26, 2022
Filed:
Dec. 27, 2019
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd., Hsinchu, TW;
Guenole Jan, San Jose, CA (US);
Jodi Mari Iwata, San Carlos, CA (US);
Ru-Ying Tong, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Huanlong Lui, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Yuan-Jen Lee, Fremont, CA (US);
Jian Zhu, San Jose, CA (US);
TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY, LTD., Hsinchu, TW;
Abstract
A magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) is disclosed wherein a free layer (FL) interfaces with a metal oxide (Mox) layer and a tunnel barrier layer to produce interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA). The Mox layer has a non-stoichiometric oxidation state to minimize parasitic resistance, and comprises a dopant to fill vacant lattice sites thereby blocking oxygen diffusion through the Mox layer to preserve interfacial PMA and high thermal stability at process temperatures up to 400° C. Various methods of forming the doped Mox layer include deposition of the M layer in a reactive environment of Oand dopant species in gas form, exposing a metal oxide layer to dopant species in gas form, and ion implanting the dopant. In another embodiment, where the dopant is N, a metal nitride layer is formed on a metal oxide layer, and then an anneal step drives nitrogen into vacant sites in the metal oxide lattice.