Thermal stability of a synthetic antiferromagnet free layer

This work investigates the temperature dependence of coercivity and estimated thermal stability factor for synthetic antiferromagnet (SyAF) and single layer. The materials used are CoFe-Ru-CoFe for SyAF and CoFe for single film. Results show that the thermal stability factor is larger for SyAF than that for single layer which may be due to the increase of switching volume. The switching properties and thermal stability of smaller size individual elements for MTJs with SyAF and single free layers is also reported.