Fabrication and testing of deep submicron annular vertical magnetoresistive random access memory elements

Robust magnetic switching and nonvolatility make magnetic random access memory an attractive prospect for future memory designs. However, there has been some concern over whether or not standard fabrication processes can be used to produce annular shaped memory elements. In this paper we present the fabrication and test results of deep submicron annular memory elements defined by electron beam and optical lithographies. The annular memory cells consist of a current perpendicular to plane giant magnetoresistive (CPP GMR) stack containing two ferromagnetic layers with a nonmagnetic interlayer where thin Cu laminations were included in the ferromagnetic layers to enhance the CPP GMR effect. (C) 2006 American Institute of Physics.