Abstract
We report on an experimental study of current-induced switching in perpendicular magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) cells with variable resistance-area products (RAs). Our results show that in addition to spin-transfer torque (STT), current-induced self-heating and voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy also contribute to switching and can explain the RA dependencies of the switching-current density and STT efficiency. Our findings suggest that thermal optimization of perpendicular MRAM cells can result in significant reduction of switching currents.
- Received 6 May 2019
- Revised 23 October 2019
- Accepted 20 December 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.13.024004
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