Voltage-induced ferromagnetic resonance in magnetic tunnel junctions

Phys Rev Lett. 2012 May 11;108(19):197203. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.197203. Epub 2012 May 9.

Abstract

We demonstrate excitation of ferromagnetic resonance in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) by the combined action of voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) and spin transfer torque (ST). Our measurements reveal that GHz-frequency VCMA torque and ST in low-resistance MTJs have similar magnitudes, and thus that both torques are equally important for understanding high-frequency voltage-driven magnetization dynamics in MTJs. As an example, we show that VCMA can increase the sensitivity of an MTJ-based microwave signal detector to the sensitivity level of semiconductor Schottky diodes.