Rectifying behavior in La2/3Sr1/3MnO3/MgO/SrRuO3 magnetic tunnel junctions

Abstract

We report first principles calculations of transport properties of the all-oxide La2/3Sr1/3MnO3/MgO/SrRuO3 magnetic tunnel junctions. A sizeable rectifying behavior which can be enhanced by increasing the MgO barrier thickness is predicted theoretically. For the device with 13 layers of MgO barrier, the positive current is about two orders of magnitude larger than the reverse leakage current. The rectifying behavior arises from the symmetry-filtering properties of the MgO barrier. This rectifying effect which is totally dominated by quantum tunneling could be used to design faster quantum devices such as tunnel diode and tunnel transistor.