Properties and Applications of Magnetic Tunnel Junctions

The discoveries of antiferromagnetic coupling in Fe/Cr multilayers by Grunberg, the Giant Magneto Resistance by Fert and Grunberg and a large tunneling magnetoresistance at room temperature by Moodera have triggered enormous research on magnetic thin films and magnetoelectronic devices. Large opportunities are especially opened by the spin dependent tunneling resistance, where a strong dependence of the tunneling current on an external magnetic field can be found. We will briefly address important basic properties of these junctions like thermal, magnetic and dielectric stability and discuss scaling issues down to junction sizes below 0.01 $\mu\textrm{m}$$^2$with respect to single domain behavior, switching properties and edge coupling effects. The second part will give an overview on applications beyond the use of the tunneling elements as storage cells in MRAMs. This concerns mainly field programmable logic circuits, where we demonstrate the clocked operation of a programmed AND gate. The second 'unconventional' feature is the use as sensing elements in DNA or protein biochips, where molecules marked magnetically with commercial beads can be detected via the dipole stray field in a highly sensitive and relatively simple way.