Giant Tunnel Magnetoresistance with MgO Barriers
2004Parkin et al., "Giant tunnelling magnetoresistance at room temperature with MgO (100) tunnel barriers" (Nature Materials 3, 862-867, 31 October 2004; DOI 10.1038/nmat1256). Showed that replacing amorphous oxide barriers with crystalline MgO(100) gives a much larger room-temperature tunnelling magnetoresistance. Yuasa et al., "Giant room-temperature magnetoresistance in single-crystal Fe/MgO/Fe magnetic tunnel junctions" (Nature Materials 3, 868-871, same date; OpenAlex W1991813033) reported the same advance in the same issue and is recorded here, not as a second node (Tier 1 SS4). The MgO barrier is the junction material behind modern MRAM and magnetic read sensors.
Originators
- Stuart S. P. Parkin
- Christian Kaiser
- Alex Panchula
- Philip M. Rice
- Brian Hughes
- Mahesh Samant
- See-Hun Yang
Landmark Paper
Checked 2026-11-02 — interim signal only, see docs/BASIC_ROADMAP.md Phase 10
Connections
- enables Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM)basis: reasoned
The crystalline MgO barrier is the junction material that gives the signal margin modern MRAM read-out relies on; the 2004 result is what made the junction a practical memory cell. Reasoned dependency, not a verified citation. Tier 1 SS9: the only edge from this node into the applied tree.
- is precursor to Perpendicular-Anisotropy CoFeB-MgO Magnetic Tunnel Junctionbasis: reasoned
Ikeda et al. build on the CoFeB-MgO system "widely adopted to produce a giant tunnel magnetoresistance ratio" in in-plane junctions; the Nature Materials page's reference list cites Parkin et al., Nature Mater. 3, 862-867 (2004). A documented citation, but no co-citation check was run, so the edge stays reasoned.
Cross-Domain Connections
No verified cross-domain connections indexed for Giant Tunnel Magnetoresistance with MgO Barriers yet. Verified links are admitted under FSTP epistemic audit standards.