Perpendicular Manganite Magnetic Tunnel Junctions Induced by Interfacial Coupling

The half-metallic manganite oxide La_2/3Sr_1/3MnO₃ (LSMO) has a very high spin polarization of ∼100%, making it ideal for ferromagnetic electrodes to realize tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR). Because of the in-plane magnetic anisotropy of the ferromagnetic LSMO electrode, which leads to the density limit of memory, realizing perpendicular tunneling in manganite-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) is critical for future applications. Here, we design and fabricate manganite-based MTJs composed of alternately stacked cobaltite and manganite layers that demonstrate strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) induced by interfacial coupling. Moreover, spin-dependent tunneling behaviors with an out-of-plane magnetic field were observed in the perpendicular MTJs. We found that the direct tunneling effect plays a dominant role in the low bias region during the transport behavior of devices, which is associated with thermionic emission of electrons or oxygen vacancies in the high bias region. Our works of realizing perpendicular tunneling in manganite-based MTJs lead to new approaches for designing and developing all-oxide spintronic devices.