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US 8,045,300 B2Granted
Tunneling magnetic sensing element and method for producing same
AssigneeTDK Corporation
InventorsKazumasa Nishimura, Yosuke Ide, Naoya Hasegawa, Masamichi Saito, Yoshihiro Nishiyama, Ryo Nakabayashi, Hidekazu Kobayashi
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Abstract
A free magnetic layer has a laminated structure in which a first magnetic sublayer composed of Co—Fe or Fe and a second magnetic sublayer composed of Co—Fe—B or Fe—B are formed, in that order, on an insulating barrier layer composed of Mg—O. This effectively improves the rate of change in resistance (ΔR/R) compared with the related art.
Claims7
A tunneling magnetic sensing element comprising:
- a pinned magnetic layer;
- an insulating barrier layer;
- and
- a free magnetic layer, the insulating layer being disposed between the pinned magnetic layer and the free magnetic layer;
- wherein the insulating barrier layer is composed of Mg—O,
- wherein the free magnetic layer has a first magnetic region and a second magnetic region, the first magnetic region is in contact with the insulating barrier layer, located between the second magnetic region and the insulating barrier layer, and composed of Co—Fe or Fe, and the second magnetic region is remote from the insulating barrier layer, in contact with the first magnetic region, and composed of Co—Fe—B or Fe—B, and
- wherein the second magnetic region has a compositionally modulated portion where the B concentration decreases gradually as the distance from the interface between the free magnetic layer and the insulating barrier layer decreases.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.