Giant Magnetoresistance

Zachary BarnettUniversity of Tennessee3/11/08

Outline

Introduction Science of GMR

Anisotropic magnetoresistance Giant magnetoresistance

Discovery of GMR Fert’s and Grünberg’s original papers Further research by IBM

Application of GMR GMR-based spin valves in hard drives

Impact of GMR on the storage media industry

GMR – why is it useful?

Discovery and application of the GMR phenomenon is responsible for the ubiquitous availability of economical, high density information storage in our society.

Compact 160 GB Mp3 players and 1 TB hard drives, now widely available, owe their existence to GMR and subsequent related advances.

Science of GMRAnisotropic Magnetoresistance

Anisotropic Magnetoresistance – Reported in 1857 by British physicist Lord Kelvin.

When a current is passed through a magnetic conductor, resistance changes based on the relative angle between the current and the conductor’s magnetization.

Resistance increases when current is perpendicular to magnetization and decreases when current is parallel to magnetization.

Cause: electron spin-orbit coupling Used as the basis of hard drive reading before GMR was

discovered.

Science of GMRGiant magnetoresistance

System: a thin layer of

nonmagnetic material sandwiched between two layers of magnetic material.

Right: a Fe-Cr-Fe trilayer used in Grünberg’s original experiment.

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Science of GMRMott Model

The electrical conductivity in metals can be described in terms of two largely independent conducting channels, corresponding to the up-spin and down-spin electrons, and electrical conduction occurs in parallel for the two channels.

In ferromagnetic metals the scattering rates of the up-spin and down-spin electrons are different.

(We will assume that the scattering is strong for electrons with spin antiparallel to the magnetization direction and weak for electrons with spin parallel to the magnetization direction.)

Science of GMRGiant magnetoresistance

Parallel magnetization Up-spin electrons

experience small resistance, down-spin electrons experience large resistance.

Total resistance is

RR

RRRpara

2

Science of GMRGiant magnetoresistance

Antiparallel magnetization Both electron spins

experience small resistance in one layer and large resistance in the other.

Total resistance is

)(2

1 RRRantpara

Science of GMRGiant Magnetoresistance

Difference in resistance is given by:

)(

)(

2

1 2

RR

RRRRR antiparapara

Discovery of GMRFert and Grünberg

Discovered by independently by Professor Albert Fert of Université Paris-Sud in France and Professor Peter Grünberg of Forschungszentrum in Jülich, Germany.

Both groups submitted papers to Physical Review in the summer of 1988.

Discovery of GMRFert

60-bilayered Fe-Cr structure at 4.2 K

Nearly 50% drop in resistance observed!!

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Discovery of GMR Grünberg

Fe-Cr-Fe trilayer at room temperature

1.5% drop in resistance reported

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Discovery of GMRIBM

Stuart Parkin of IBM attempted to reproduce the effect using the sputtering technique

Fert and Grünberg used molecular beam epitaxy, a more precise but slower and more expensive method.

Parkin’s group succeeded, observing GMR in the first multilayer sample’s produced.

Parkin’s group began experimenting with various sample compositions and layer thicknesses to better understand GMR and how to integrate it into magnetic storage.

GMR in practiceSpin Valve

[7].

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GMR’s effect on hard drive industry

First GMR hard drive deployed: Deskstar 16 GP by IBM Date: 1997 Storage: 16.8 GB 2.7 billion bits per square

inch. Current largest hard drive:

Deskstar 7K1000 by Hitachi Date: 2007 Storage: 1 TB

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References

1. The Class for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. The Discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance, 2007. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2007/phyadv07.pdf

2. E. Y. Tsymbal and D. G. Pettifor. Solid State Physics, volume 56. Academic Press, 2001.

3. G. Binasch et. al. Enhanced magnetoresistance in layered magnetic structures with antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange. Physical Review B, 61, 2472 (1989).

4. Charles Day. Discoverers of giant magnetoresistance win this year’s physics nobel. Physics Today, December 2007.

5. M. N. Baibich et. al. Giant Magnetoresistance of (001)Fe/(001)Cr Magnetic Superlatices. Physical Review Letters, 39, 4828 (1988).

6. IBM Corporation. GMR, 1996. http://www.research.ibm.com/research/gmr.html

7. http://www.stoner.leeds.ac.uk/research/gmr.htm

References

8. Western Digital. GMR Head Technology. http://www.wdc.com/en/library/2579-890043.pdf.9. Western Digital. GMR Head Technology. http://www.wdc.com/en/library/2579-850121.pdf.10. The New York Times. I.B.M. Set to Introduce a Disk Drive With Improved PC Storage

Devices, November 10, 1997. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E7DE1339F933A25752C1A961958260

11. The Nobel Foundation. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2007. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2007/info.pdf.

12. Melissa J. Perenson. The Hard Drive Turns 50, 2006. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127104/article.html.

13. The Royal Swedish Academy of Science. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2007, October 9, 2007. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2007/press.html.

14. Hitachi. Hitachi Ships the One Terabyte Hard Drive, April 25, 2007. http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.e39dec85503c12f57d807c90eac4f0a0/?javax.portlet.tpst=d874f001552427df483bad24eac4f0a0_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_d874f001552427df483bad24eac4f0a0_viewID=content&javax.portlet.prp_d874f001552427df483bad24eac4f0a0_docName=20070425_ships_the_one_terabyte.html&javax.portlet.prp_d874f001552427df483bad24eac4f0a0_folderPath=%2Fhgst%2Faboutus%2Fpress%2Finternal_news%2F&beanID=2093653520&viewID=content&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=token&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=token.