Inversion of magnetoresistance in magnetic tunnel junctions : effect of pinhole nanocontacts

Soumik Mukhopadhyay, I. Das

Published 2005-07-29, updated 2006-01-19Version 3

Inverse magnetoresistance has been observed in magnetic tunnel junctions with pinhole nanocontacts over a broad temperature range. The tunnel magnetoresistance undergoes a change of sign at higher bias and temperature. This phenomenon is attributed to the competition between the spin conserved ballistic transport through the pinhole contact where the transmission probability is close to unity and spin polarized tunneling across the insulating spacer with weak transmittivity.