Epitaxial ferroelectric/giant magnetoresistive heterostructures for magnetosensitive memory cell

Epitaxial ferroelectric/giant magnetoresistive Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O-3/La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (PZT/LCMO) heterostructures have been grown onto LaAlO3 (001) single crystal by KrF pulsed laser deposition. Main processing parameters have been optimized to preserve giant magnetoresitivity in the LCMO film after deposition of the top ferroelectric layer. High degree of c-axis orientation and strong in-plane texture, coherent with the substrate, both in template LCMO and PZT layers, high dielectric permittivity of 720, remnant polarization of 17 mu C/cm(2) of PZT, and magnetoresistivity in LCMO of 28% at H = 0.5 T indicate excellent characteristics of coexisting magnetoresistive and ferroelectric properties. We compare the performance of magnetosensitive memory cells with La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 and La0.75Sr0.25MnO3 giant magnetoresistive electrodes. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)02307-4].