Structural and transport properties of epitaxial Fe/ZnSe/FeCo magnetic tunnel junctions

The use of a semiconductor barrier in heteroepitaxy with ferromagnetic metal electrodes describes a novel type of magnetic tunnel junctions. In this work, epitaxial Fe/ZnSe/FeCo magnetic tunnel junctions have been grown on ZnSe(001) buffered GaAs(001) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. Alloying a small amount of Co with Fe in the base electrode provides a better seed epilayer for the growth of the ZnSe barrier compared to pure Fe as seen by transmission electron microscopy. Detailed characterization of the FeCo surface was performed by in situ scanning tunneling microscopy and revealed pyramid-shaped defects of up to 60 Angstrom in height distributed on the FeCo surface. Transport measurements on microfabricated tunnel junctions yielded up to 16% magnetoresistance at 10 K and the effect is attributed to spin polarized tunneling across the semiconductor barrier in the energy range of the gap. The observed anomalous character of the magnetoresistance was attributed to conduction through the pyramidal defects in the base FeCo layer.