Self-Consistent Transport-Magnetic Simulation and Benchmarking of Hybrid Spin-Torque Driven Magnetic Tunnel Junctions (MTJs)

We investigate electronic transport and magnetization dynamics associated with the current induced spin torque effects in two different classes of magnetic tunnel junctions using Non-Equilibrium Green's Function (NEGF) formalism and Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation. We calibrate our transport simulation framework with a diverse set of tri-layer experiments, before we proceed with dual barrier penta-layer MTJ simulations. We investigate and thereby compare the magnetization switching dynamics of a tri-layer with that of an anti-aligned penta-layer MTJ corresponding to parallel (P) to anti-parallel (AP) switching and vice versa. Higher critical switching current density (JC) and asymmetric switching characteristics have been confirmed for tri-layer structures as opposed to the case of identical anti-aligned penta-layer configurations. Energy efficiency of anti-aligned penta-layer over that of tri-layer MTJ structures during spin torque driven magnetization switching has also been reported quantitatively.