Dielectric Characteristics of Magnetic Tunnel Junction

To investigate the reliability of the MTJs on the roughness of insulating tunnel barrier, we prepared two MTJs with the different uniformity of barrier thickness. Namely, the one has uniform insulating barrier thickness; the other has non-uniform insulating barrier thickness as compared to different thing. As to depositing amorphous layer CoZrNb under the pinning layer IrMn, we achieved MTJ with uniform barrier thickness. Toinvestigate the reliability of the MTJs dependent on the bottom electrode, time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) measurements were carried out under constant voltage stress. The Weibull fit of out data shows clearly that $t_{BD}$ scales with the thickness uniformity of MTJs tunnel barrier. Assuming a linear dependence of log($t_{BD}$) on stress voltages, we obtained the lifetime of $10^4$years at a operating voltage of 0.4 V at MTJs comprising CoNbZr layers. This study shows that the reliabilityof new MTJs structure was improved due to the ultra smooth barrier, because the surface roughness of the bottom electrode influenced the uniformity of tunnel barrier.