Electron Holography study of the local magnetic switching process in MTJs

TL;DR

This paper uses electron holography to locally and quantitatively analyze magnetic switching in magnetic tunnel junctions, confirming the method's accuracy against macroscopic magnetometry and revealing no interlayer magnetic coupling.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of electron holography for detailed local magnetic analysis in MTJs, providing insights into their switching behavior.

Findings

No magnetic coupling between layers was observed.

Local hysteresis loops matched macroscopic magnetometry results.

Electron holography effectively characterizes local magnetic states.

Abstract

We present an electron holography experiment enabling the local and quantitative study of magnetic properties in magnetic tunnel junction. The junction was fully characterized during the switching process and each possible magnetic configuration was highlighted with magnetic induction maps. No magnetic coupling was found between the two layers. We plot a local hysteresis loop that was compared with magnetometry measurement at the macroscopic scale confirming the validity of the local method.