ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910

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Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmmm

Effect of material selection and background impurity on interface property

and resulted CIP-GMR performance
Xilin Peng , Augusto Morrone, Konstantin Nikolaev, Mark Kief, Mark Ostrowski
RHO, Seagate Technology, 7801 Computer Ave. South, Bloomington, MN 55435, USA

a r t i c l e in f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, we investigated the effect of background base pressure, wafer-transferring time between
Received 21 February 2009 process modules, and stack layer material selection on the current-in-plane giant magneto-resistive
Available online 3 May 2009 (CIP-GMR) interface properties and the resulted CIP-GMR performance. Experimental results showed
Keywords: that seed layer/AFM interface, AFM/pinned layer (PL) interface, pinned layer/Ru interface, and reference
CIP-GMR layer (RL)/Cu spacer interface are among the most critical ones for a CIP-GMR device. By reducing the
Interface background impurity level (water moisture and oxygen), optimizing the wafer process ow sequence,
Lattice mismatch and careful stack-layer material selection, such critical interfaces in a CIP-GMR device can be preserved.
Seed layer Consequently, a much robust GMR performance control can be achieved.
AFM
& 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
SAF
TEM

1. Introduction From new material development and interface engineering/

To meet the ever-increasing demand for higher areal density
storage requirement, an increased output voltage from the storage
device is required. Various efforts have been undertaken to
improve the traditional current-in-plane giant magneto-resistive
(CIP-GMR) device amplitude since its invention [1] and introduc-
tion to the storage industry by IBM [2] a decade ago. Insertion of
an oxide layer on top of the free layer (FL) and/or within the
reference layer [3,4] have been found effective in boosting such
CIP-GMR device output, due to the specular reection of electrons
at nano-oxide layer (NOL) interface, which preserves their spin
polarization. Using the rst Cu anti-ferromagnetic (AFM) coupling
peak (at about 12 A) as spacer layer in a trilayer design [5] can
further improve the signal output for CIP-GMR by reducing the
electrical shunting via the Cu spacer layer. However, the current-
perpendicular-to-plane (CPP) tunneling magneto-resistive (TMR)
devices have replaced the current-in-plane giant magneto-
resistive devices and become the main stream for the storage
application in the last few years due to the signicant progress in
MgO-TMR devices, which achieved over 200% of MR ratio [6,7].
For the new generations of storage heads beyond 1 Tb/in2, either
very lower resistance  area product (RA) MgO-TMR, or CPP-GMR
systems with [8] or without current connement path are
expected. This requires new materials and stack layer interface
design innovation.
 Corresponding author.
E-mail address: xilin.peng@seagate.com (X. Peng).
controlling point of view, CIP-GMR and CPP-GMR devices
(including metallic CPP-GMR and MgO-TMR) bear a lot of
similarity. For example, both CPP-GMR and CIP-GMR devices have
very close bottom-half structure (from seed layer, through
synthetic anti-ferromagnetic (SAF) to the barrier/spacer),
although the seed layer requirements for CIP-GMR and CPP-
GMR are not the same. Seed layer has to meet the requirement for
minimized current shunting for CIP-GMR [5], in addition to
providing good texture development for other layers grown onto
it. In CPP-GMR design, on the other hand, the seed layer with
reduced parasitic resistance (metallic CPP-GMR in particular)
should be the primary choice. Moreover, the CIP-GMR device
performance can be easily measured on sheet lm level without
stringent nano-patterning requirement, as compared to CPP-GMR
devices, and thus, fast device performance feedback is possible.
This provides substantial benet for new material selection,
process development, and fundamental study.
Since the material layers in typical GMR devices are approach-
ing atomic level (ranged from angstroms to nanometers), interface
engineering/control is as important as bulk material selection, if
not more crucial. It is therefore benecial if we can leverage the
CIP-GMR interface property information for CPP-GMR device.
Those critical interfaces for both CIP- and CPP-GMR systems
include, but not limited to: (1) seed layer/anti-ferromagnetic layer
interface, (2) AFM/pinned layer (PL) interface, (3) synthetic anti-
ferromagnetic interfaces (ferromagnetic layer/Ru/ferromagnetic
layer), and (4) reference layer/spacer interface. Those interfaces
can signicantly affect the AFM texture development (and the
corresponding AFM pinning eld and blocking temperature), SAF

0304-8853/$ - see front matter & 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmmm.2009.04.047
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X. Peng et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910
Fig. 1. Critical interfaces for specular, simple CIP-GMR, single NOL-GMR, and DNOL-GMR stacks employed in this study and the important interfaces, which may be affected
by moisture and O2 exposure.
coupling strength, interface spin-dependent electron scattering,
and thus the achievable overall GMR performance. For example, it
has been found that the seed layer material selection [913],
critical seed layer thickness [10,11,14], oxygen impurity content
[15] had strong impact on the AFM texture growth, its grain size,
and the corresponding GMR ratio of the lm stack. Background
impurity effect can be more profound when high oxygen-afnity
seed layer (like Ta) is used. Mao et al. [3] have reported that IrMn
grown onto oxide substrates (TaO, CoFeO, etc.) had much weaker
(111) texture than that deposited onto metallic Ta and Ta/CoFe
seed layers.
In this article, we have systematically investigated such critical
interfaces for the CIP-GMR devices and their dependence on
the material choices, background impurity, and process ow
sequence. This learning is also applicable to the CPP-GMR
(including TMR) device stack design. Due to the length limitation,
we were not able to cover other critical interfaces, such as the
spacer (barrier)/free layer interface, FL/Cap layer interface, and the
patterned device side wall/permanent magnet (PM) (for CIP-GMR)
interface or device side wall/isolation layer (for CPP-TMR) inter-
face in this study, though they are as crucial as other mentioned
interfaces.
2. Experimental details
All lms were prepared via direct current (DC) magnetron
sputtering using ultra-high vacuum (UHV) system with a base
pressure of 109 Torr, except for those experiments where a
controlled background pressure/impurity study was specied in
detail in the context. Silicon with 3000 A of thermal oxide was
used as substrate. Crystal structures for selected single lms and
lm stacks were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) with Cu
target at 45 kV and 40 mA current on Philips XRD machine.
To fully quantify the impact of material selection (seed, AFM,
CoFe, SAF, etc.) and the background impurity on the critical
interfaces for various CIP-GMR stack congurations, we have
evaluated different CIP-GMR congurations ranged from simple
2903
bi-layer stack, simple SAF, specular stack, simple bottom spin
valve (BSV), to BSV with single and dual nano-oxide layers (DNOL)
as detailed below
 bi-layer stack for AFM pinning: seed/AFM (PtMn or IrMn)/
CoFex/Cap layer
 isolated SAF structures: seed/CoxFeyBz/Ru/CoxFeyBz/Cap layer
 specular stack with layer structure: Ta 30 A/NiFe 30 A/CoFe
15 A/(NOL)/Ta 30 A
 simple bottom spin valve with layer structure: seed layer/
PtMn/CoFe/Ru/CoFe/Cu/CoFeNiFe/Cap layer
 single nano-oxide layer BSV (NOL-BSV) with layer structure:
seed/PtMn/CoFe/Ru/CoFe/Cu/CoFe/NOL1/Cap layer
 dual nano-oxide layer BSV (DNOL-BSV) with layer structure:
seed/PtMn/CoFe/Ru/CoFeNOL1CoFe/Cu/CoFe/NOL2/Cap
layer
All the GMR samples and bi-layer stacks were annealed at
300 1C, 2 T eld for 4 h under protective N2 environment.
Magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) measurement was employed
for AFM pinning eld and SAF coupling characterization.
Two point probing was used to measure the GMR stack
sheet resistance and magneto-resistance change under external
eld sweep from 2000 to +2000 Oe. Further high-resolution
transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to characterize
the interface and lattice growth for selected layer and layer
interfaces.
Although an ultra low pressure (107 Torr) and very small
dose (a few to a few tens Langmuir (L). Note: 1 L 106 Torr s) of
O2 exposure at interfaces between Cu/CoFe or within the RL CoFe
has been found being benecial to minimize the interface
intermixing. This commonly referred oxygen surfactant effect
has been successfully employed to alter the interface roughness,
thus altering the interlayer exchange coupling and GMR ratio.
However, further increase in the O2 exposure is found to be
detrimental.
Here, we have intentionally altered some critical interfaces by
either controlling O2 exposure at 106 Torr chamber pressure or
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
2904 X. Peng et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910

Table 1
Crystal structure, lattice constants [16,17], and the corresponding densely packed crystal plane d-spaces for various metals and their alloys commonly used for CIP-GMR
devices.

Material Structure Lattice constant d (111) Lattice mismatch

a (A) c (A) Relative to IrMn (%) Relative to PtMn (%) Relative to CoFe (%)

IrMn fcc 3.78 2.67 0 1.4 6.6

PtMn fct 3.97 3.70 2.71 1.5 0 8.1
CoFe10 fcc 3.55 2.51 6.2 7.5 0
NiFe20 fcc 3.54 2.50 6.4 7.8 0.3
Cu fcc 3.61 2.56 4.4 5.7 1.9
Ir fcc 3.84 2.71 1.6 0.1 8.2
Pd fcc 3.89 2.75 2.9 1.4 9.7
Pt fcc 3.92 2.77 3.8 2.3 10.6
NiCr40 fcc 3.56 2.52 5.8 7.2 0.4
NiFe12Cr40 fcc 3.56 2.52 5.8 7.2 0.4
Al fcc 4.05 2.86 7.1 5.6 14
d (0 0 0 1)

Ti hcp 2.92 4.67 2.92 9.2 7.7 16.4

Ru hcp 2.70 4.28 2.70 1.2 0.3 7.8
Co hcp 2.51 4.07 2.51 6.1 7.4 0.1
Os hcp 2.74 4.32 2.74 2.3 0.9 9.1
d (11 0)

Ta bcc 3.31 2.87 7.2 5.7 14.3

Cr bcc 2.88 2.50 6.6 7.9 0.4
Fe bcc 2.87 2.49 7.0 8.4 0.9

by controlling vacuum base pressure through baking procedures. 9000

The resulted magnetic and electrical performance (coupling eld, Ta100A
8000
GMR, sheet resistance, and delta R) change of such partial or full Ru100A
GMR stacks were explained in the light of critical interface 7000 Ta50ARu100A
Intneisty, a. u.

variation. By understanding the importance of such interface 6000

engineering/control for CIP-GMR devices, CIP-GMR devices with
high MR ratio and better magnetic stability (pinning eld, SAF
coupling for instance) have be enabled via correct material
selection, impurity contamination level control and process ow
sequence optimization.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Important interfaces for GMR system
As we have discussed previously that the interface engineering
and control for CIP-GMR is crucial since the layer thickness is
approaching atomic level in these lm stacks. Fig. 1 highlighted all
the critical interfaces for various lm stack congurations from
specular stack to DNOL-BSVs. These interfaces include: seed/AFM
interface, AFM/pinned layer interface, SAF interfaces, reference
layer/Cu spacer interface, and Cu/free layer interfaces. Solid
arrows in Fig. 1 highlighted these interfaces. Interfaces above
the free layer will not be discussed here.
3.2. Seed layer requirements
3.2.1. Lattice matching vs. texture development
The primary role of seed layer is to promote the designed
texture development of the top layers grown onto it. Simple seed
layer (like NiCr, NiFeCr, etc.) and bi-layer seed layer (such as Ta/Ru,
Ta/NiCr, Ta/NiFeCr, NiCr/CoFe, NiCr/NiFe, NiFeCr/CoFe, and NiFeCr/
NiFe) have been widely employed for different designs. For bottom
spin valve-type CIP-GMR devices, both IrMn and PtMn AFMs have
also been used.
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
-1000
35 40 45 50
Diffraction angle, degrees
Fig. 2. XRD patterns for 100 A Ta, 100 A Ru, and 50 A Ta+100 A Ru single lms
grown on thermal oxide silicon wafers. (Cu Ka 45 kV, 40 mA.) The sharp peak at
42.21 correspond to Ru.
The lattice mismatch can cause the lm stack distortion,
unstability and interface irregularity/defects [16]. A good seed
layer usually enhances the nucleation and provides least lattice
mismatching for the growing layer. Table 1 lists some selected
seed layer materials and their lattice mismatching percentage
relative to IrMn, PtMn, and CoFe is calculated based on the inter-
atomic distance within the most densely packed crystal planes
((111) for fcc, (0 0 0 1) plane for hcp and (11 0) plane for bcc
crystals, respectively). Judging from lattice mismatching data
only, Ir, Pd, Pt, Ru, and Cu appear to be good seed layer candidates
for AFM (PtMn and IrMn), followed by NiCr, NiFeCr, CoFe,
and NiFe.
Ta is an interesting seed layer material, it usually exists in
amorphous or nano-crystal status from XRD pattern as shown in
Fig. 2. It provides a very good wetting base for Ru growth. Zheng
et al. [9] reported that Ta/Ru provided much better texture growth
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X. Peng et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910
5500
NiC r10/IrMn100
NiC r30/IrMn100
4500 NiC r50A
NiC r50/IrMn100
Ta50/IrMn100
Intensity, a. u.
3500
2500
1500
500
-500
35 40 45
Diffraction angle, degrees
Fig. 3. XRD patterns for 1050 A NiCr+100 A IrMn, 50 A NiCr only, and 50 A
Ta+100 A IrMn lm stacks grown on thermal oxide Si wafers. (Cu Ka 45 kV, 40 mA.)
The broad peak at 441 corresponds to NiCr, while the sharp peak at 41.61 is
attributed to IrMn.
for Co (0 0 0 2) for perpendicular recording medium, compared
with Ru seed layer only. This is primarily due to the much easy
nucleation of Ru on amorphous Ta seed layer in comparison with
on thermal oxide silicon. The missing of underneath Ta layer is
thought to be the main cause in Aley et al.s [13] results that the
IrMn (111) texture is not favored by Ru and Cu seed layers, even
though their lattices match fairly well with those of IrMn, since
the Ru and Cu seed layers in Aleys report are directly deposited
onto thermal oxide SiO2. In contrast, NiCr seed layer without Ta
underlayer does favor the strong IrMn (111) texture formation
once it reaches a critical thickness. This thickness is about 4050 A
in our study from XRD pattern in Fig. 3. NiCr diffraction peak was
evident only after the NiCr thickness reached 50 A. Accordingly,
the IrMn (111) developed well on 50 A NiCr, but not on 10 and
30 A NiCr, which did not show XRD diffraction peak.
Although we observed that amorphous Ta-only seed layer can
also promote the IrMn (111) texture growth (see Fig. 3), this may
not be a surprise. On amorphous substrate, it is believed that IrMn
(111) texture can be formed to minimize its surface energy (the
closely packed plane of (111) has to lie on the lm growing plane
in the absence of a large strain or distortions from the underlying
layer [18]). However, the IrMn grain size may be relatively smaller
compared with other crystal seed layers, and thus may affect the
blocking temperature.
As a result, other seed layer combinations, such as Ta/CoFe,
Ta/NiFe, NiFeCr/CoFe or NiCr/CoFe or NiFe, Ta/NiFeCr, Ta/NiCr,
Ta/Ru, Ta/Cu, etc. have been widely studied for both CIP-GMR
[3,10,11], CPP-TMR [8] and perpendicular medium [19,20].
Bi-layer seed layer with Ta is apparently advantageous to
remove the substrate surface impact, since amorphous Ta can act
as a very good wetting layer for the second seed layer growing
on top of it. For instance, Ru(0 0 0 1) and NiFeCr(111) texture is
much improved with 420 A of Ta under layer deposited onto
thermal oxide SiO2 substrates. As we will discuss more later that
Ta surface is very suspective to impurity attack and careful
process sequence design is recommended to avoid the Ta surface
contamination. For instance, Mao et al. [3] found that IrMn (111)
diffraction peak became broader and weak once the Ta is oxidized.
It is therefore recommended to deposit the Ta underlayer and its
overlying seed in the same vacuum chamber if possible to
minimize the background impurity impact on the interface during
wafer transferring.
2905
Seed layer = NiFeCr x+/CoFe10A
30
GMR (%) or Rs (ohm/sq)
25
20
GMR ratio, %
15 Rs, Ohms/sq
10
5
0
25 27 29 31 33 35
NiFeCr thickness (A)
Fig. 4. Seed layer thickness effect on the NOL-GMR and sheet resistance.
50
3.2.2. Critical thickness
Fig. 4 shows the sheet resistance (Rs) and GMR ratio
dependence for a single NOL-BSV as a function of NiFeCr seed
layer thickness. It is evident that critical NiFeCr thickness needs to
be 433 A (when used in combination with 10 A of CoFe here). This
thickness is 450 A when single NiCr or NiFeCr seed layer is used,
which is in agreement with what Lee et al. [10,11,14] reported
previously.
The large sheet resistance and low GMR at o31 A of NiFeCr
seed-layer thickness is thought to be caused by the discontinuous
and defective stack layer formation when the seed layer is not
thick enough, such defective layers may scatter more electrons
and causes a higher Rs [10,11]. The Rs dropping with further
increase in NiFeCr thickness due to shunting being not signicant
here, though, probably due to the relatively high resistivity of
NiFeCr.
3.2.3. Resistivity consideration
For CIP-GMR device, higher resistivity seed layer and thinner
spacer layer are benecial to minimize current shunting [5]. For
CPP-GMR device, on the other hand, materials with lower
resistivity are required as seed layer and other non-active layers
(such as AFM, Cap, etc.) only add parasitic resistance to the device
and do not contribute to the magneto-resistance change (MR
ratio). Therefore, low-resitivitiy seed layers, such as Ta/Ru and
Ta/Cu may be better.
Here, we have experimentally measured both CIP resistance
and CPP resistivity for a variety of materials (including seed layer)
and shown in Fig. 5a and b. CPP RA for various materials was
determined by patterning the devices into 0.35 mm circular shape
and using Cu as both top and bottom electrodes to sandwich the
materials to be studied (i.e. Cu/materials to be studied/Cu) rst,
then isolating these devices with 40 nm Al2O3 and nally measure
the CPP resistance using a four-point probe. We did not correct the
Cu contact resistance here and assume that it is negligible. The
data from Fig. 5 clearly indicated that NiFeCr and NiCr will not be
a good seed layer for CPP-GMR due to the large CPP RA. For the
same reason, CPP-GMR AFM (IrMn and PtMn) thickness needs to
be reduced as well to minimize the parasitic resistance.
3.2.4. Material selection and background impurity impact on trilayer
CIP-GMR performance
Due to the fact that stack layers are in the range of a few to a
few tens of angstroms, the impact of seed layer material selection
and impurity impingement to the CIP-GMR performance can be
signicant. To simplify the question on hand, we selected here a
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2906 X. Peng et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910

Normalized CIP resistivity, mohms-

Normalized CIP resistivity for various materials
1.2
1.0 Normalized CIP
resistivity
0.8
cm 0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0 IrMn

Ta

PtMn

Co32Fe48B20

NiFe12Cr40

NiCr40

Ru

NiFe20

CoFe10

Fe80Co20

Cu
Material ID

Normalized RA for various materials

1.2
Normalized CPP RA

1.0
Normalized CPP RA
0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
PtMn

NiFe12Cr40

FeCoB6

NiFe20

FePt

Fe80Co20

CoFe10

CoPt

Ru x 10
NiCr40

IrMn

Ta

Material ID

Fig. 5. (a) CIP resistivity for various selected materials commonly used for both CPP- and CIP-GMR stacks and (b) CPP RA.

Table 2
Seed layer effect on the trilayer NOL-GMR ratio.

Sample ID Stack details Rs (O/sq) GMR (%)

X1 no seed/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.530/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 12.3 1.1

X2 IrMn40/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 11.9 0.1
X3 Ta30/Cu10/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 8.9 0.1
X4 Ta30/Ru10/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 10.25 0.1
X5 NiCr40/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 6.8 19.4
X6 NiCr40/Ru10/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CF12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 6.6 18.2
X7 NiCr40/Cu10/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 6.1 19.2
X8 NiCr40/Al10/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CF12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 8.8 0.8
X9 NiCr40/Ti10/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 12.6 0.05
X10 NiCr40/Ta10/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 8.5 0.2
X11 NiCr40/Ru10/CF12.530/Cu12.5/CF12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 6.6 18.2
X12 NiCr40/Ru10-O2/CoFe12.530/Cu12.5/CoFe12.5 30/Cu4/NOL/TaN50 7.5 11.4

trilayer NOL-GMR stack to avoid the AFM and SAF inuence and Cu and Ru is not thick enough to fully develop good texture, which
summarized the data in Table 2. Samples X1X4 from Table 4 in turn, affect the CoFe magnetic layer growth. To further prove
clearly show very low GMR when bottom FL is directly grown this suspetion, a 10 A of Cu, Ru, Al, Ti, and Ta was added on top of
on thermal oxide SiO2 (X1), IrMn (X2), Ta30/Cu10 (X3), and 40 A NiCr to form a bi-layer seed layersee to samples X6X10).
Ta30/Ru10 (X4), compared with X5 where 40 A of NiCr seed layer Indeed, NiCr/Cu and NiCr/Ru showed normal GMR and Rs
is used. It is suspected that on amorphous Ta underlayer, 10 A of (though samples X6 showed reduced Rs compared with X5 due to
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X. Peng et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910 2907

the shunting caused by low-resistance Ru layer), but not for the
samples with NiCr/Al, Ti, and Ta seed layers. Due to the large
lattice mismatching between NiCr and Ti/Al/Ta, as well as
between Ti/Al/Ta and CoFe (see Table 1), texture of Ti/Al/Ta
grown on NiCr and the overlying CoFe texture grown onto Ti/Al/Ta
is unlikely to develop well, this will ultimately affect the CoFe
magnetic layer properties and degrade the trilayer stack CIP-GMR
performance. Another possibility of the low GMR ratio and
large sheet resistance for samples X8X10 is that the interface
between Al/CoFe, Ti/CoFe, and Ta/CoFe may be less stable and
could be intermixed, compared with Cu/CoFe and Ru/CoFe
interfaces.
Samples X1112 from Table 2 highlighted the impact of the O2
exposure on the GMR ratio. A dose of 60 L of O2 on the NiCr/Ru
seed layer surface reduced the GMR from 18.2% to 11.4%, while
increased the sheet resistance.
The impact of background impurity on the seed layer proper-
ties was further studied using a specular stack (Fig. 6). Stack sheet
resistance oscillation between odd and even wafers was obvious
when wafers were run in a cascading mode (multiple wafers in
process tool during the run and some wafers had to wait in the
transfer mode before a process mode was available for that
particular wafer). Such Rs oscillation is due to the transferring
time difference of the odd and even wafers from one chamber (C)
to another (D) when we run in cascading mode (see Fig. 7a). Since
Ta readily reacts with residual moisture and background oxygen,
longer transferring time means more impurity impingement on
the Ta surface and results in higher Rs. It is easy to understand that
poor vacuum increases such resistance oscillation amplitude due
to higher impurity concentration. Once a serial process mode
was employed (one wafer in the process tool only at all times),
such oscillation pattern was gone (see Fig. 7b).

3.3. AFM/pinned layer interface and impurity impact

Table 3 shows the impact of O2 exposure (60 L) impact on the

seed layer/AFM and AFM/pinned interfaces. Previous XRD has
conrmed that Ta/Ru served as a good seed layer for IrMn (111)
AFM texture development in view of the good lattice matching
between Ru (0 0 0 1) and IrMn (111). When the Ta/Ru interface is
contaminated; however, the pinning eld reduced from 960 to
800 Oe; the IrMn pinning eld only exhibited minor reduction
Fig. 6. The most critical interface in a specular stack, affected by wafer transferring
from 960 to 920 Oe when Ru/IrMn interface was subjected to O2
process.
exposure. In contrast, the pinning eld completely disappeared
when IrMn/CoFe interface is attacked by O2. This highlighted that
the sensitivities of the interfaces towards impurity is in this order:
AFM/pinned layer interface4Ta/Ru interface4Ru/IrMn interface.
Specular stack
100 As a result, it is strongly recommended that AFM/PL processed
within the same chamber without wafer transferring to enable
C>D transfer time, sec

80 more robust process control.

60 3.4. SAF (PL/Ru/RL) interface dependence on material selection and

impurity
40
Tables 4 and 5 summarized the resulted SAF coupling strength
20 after subject to O2 exposure (60 L). It is apparent from Table 4
that O2 exposure (60 L) on pinned layer had a large impact on Ru
0 growth and completely destroyed the SAF coupling. This is
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 presumable because the formation of CoFeOx after O2 exposure
Wafer number and Ru (9 A here) does not grow well onto CoFeOx. However,
once the Ru has been deposited onto the pinned layer CoFe, the O2
exposure on Ru surface has very little impact onto the SAF
Rs-serial -good vac
coupling, probably due to Rutheniums low oxygen afnity.
Specular stack Rs-cascading-good vac
86
On the other hand, the SAF coupling was also found to be very
Rs_cascading-poor vac
sensitive towards the magnetic layer microstructure. Tsunoda
85
et al. [21] reported that the pinning eld for CoFex using IrMn AFM
Rs (ohms/sq)

84
showed a peak at about 30% of Fe content. We know that there is a
83 fcc to bcc transition for CoFex when Fe content is above
82 2530 at% and the spin polarization of CoFe (for CPP-GMR in
81 particular) increases with the Fe content [8]. So, CoFe30 was also
80 examined in this study as both PL and RL.
79 From Table 5, it seems that amorphous FeCoB and bcc Fe-rich
78 FeCo PL failed to provide good SAF coupling, while CoFe30 was
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 among the magnetic layers that provided highest SAF coupling,
Wafer number though its high temperature thermal stability (not shown here) is
inferior to that of CoFe10. Additional high-resolution TEM images
Fig. 7. (a) Chamber C to chamber D transferring time of odd/even wafers during from Fig. 8 revealed that Ru showed much sharper interface when
the specular stack process when run in cascading mode (multiple wafers in the grown on crystal ferromagnetic layer CoFe30, compared with that
process tool at one time) and (b) the resulted sheet resistance variation due to the
grown on amorphous ferromagnetic layer CoFeB. For a better TEM
difference of such transferring time and the impact of background base vacuum.
Note: good vacuum 109 Torr (with 12 h chamber baking) transfer mode; poor study of the FM/Ru interface, relatively thick (30 A) was used here,
vacuum 108 Torr base pressure (without baking). i.e. Ta20 A/FM1 50 A/Ru 30 A/FM2 50 A/Cap strucutre was used for
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2908 X. Peng et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910

Table 3
O2 exposure effect on seed/IrMn and the IrMn/pinned layer interfaces.

Sample ID Stack Mokem results

Hc (Oe) Hex (Oe) Kerr intensity

SEED1 Ta30/Ru30/IrMn70/CoFe30 50/Ta50 440 960 25.3

SEED2 Ta30O2 exposure/Ru30/IrMn70/CoFe30 50/Ta50 600 800 24.8
SEED3 Ta30/Ru30O2 exposure/IrMn70/CoFe30 50/Ta50 440 920 25.2
SEED4 Ta30/Ru30/IrMn70O2 exposure/CoFe30 50/Ta50 260 10 27.4

Table 4
O2 exposure effect at SAF interfaces on the SAF coupling strength.

Sample Stack Normalized SAF

ID coupling

SAF1 Ta30/Ru30/CoFe30 30/Ru9/CoFe30 30/Ta50 1

SAF2 Ta30/Ru30/CoFe30 30O2 exposure/Ru9/CoFe30 0
30/Ta50
SAF3 Ta30/Ru30/CoFe30 30/Ru9O2 exposure/CoFe30 1
30/Ta50

Table 5
Material and its structure effect on the SAF coupling strength.

Sample ID SAF material combinations Normalized SAF coupling

SAF-M1 Fe64Co16B20/Ru/Fe64Co16B20 0.00

SAF-M2 Fe80Co20/Ru/Fe80Co20 0.39
SAF-M3 Fe64Co16B20CoFe10/Ru/Fe64Co16B20 0.61
SAF-M4 CoFe30/Ru/Fe64Co16B20 0.75
SAF-M5 CoFe10/Ru/Fe64Co16B20 0.83
SAF-M6 CoFe10/Ru/CoFe10 0.89
SAF-M7 CoFe30/Ru/CoFe30 1.00

Note: Magnetic ux was kept the same for all the SAF material combination by
adjusting their thickness.
Fig. 8. TEM images showing the ferromagnetic layer (FM)/Ru interfaces with
structure: Ta 20 A/FM1 50 A/Ru 30 A/FM2 50 A/Cap, for (a) FM1 crystal CoFe30,
FM2 amorphous Co60Fe20B20, and (b) FM1 FM2 amorphous Co60Fe20B20.
Note: right side of images are the enlarged ones from left side.

TEM imaging to better evaluating the FM/Ru interface. Actual

Ru thickness used in real SAF structure is much thinner (9 A)
in Table 4 and the Ru growth defects on amorphous FM1 can
cause less sharp interface and effectively change the SAF coupling
(see SAF-M1 and SAF-M2). Interestingly, inserting 10 A of CoFe10
between amorphous FeCoB and Ru, restored the SAF coupling up
to 60% of maximum level for SAF-M3 sample. The relatively poor
SAF coupling for Fe-rich PL may be also related to the interface in
stability between Fe and Ru layer.
The impact of Ru/RL interface was found less signicant than
PL/Ru interface, accounting for only 1030% of SAF coupling
variation when amorphous RL and crystal RL were used for the
same crystal PL (compare samples SAF-M4/M7 and SAF-M5/M6).
Therefore, crystal and Co-rich PL is recommended for better SAF
coupling.
3.5. Reference layer/Cu spacer interface dependence on impurity
Reference layer/Cu spacer is another critical interface affecting
CIP-GMR performance. Due to the necessary wafer transferring
between various process modules during lm stack deposition, it
is important to arrange targets and optimize the process ow
sequence in such a way that the required wafer transferring
between chambers does not occur at such critical interfaces.
Detailed residual gas analyzer (RGA) data has shown (not
presented here) that residual moisture from the etching chamber
and load locks (release from the wafer surface) for extended run
gradually released into transfer mode when slit valves were open
between transfer mode and etching mode or load lock. This has
been identied as the primary reason to cause the GMR ratio to
gradual drop for single NOL-GMR in Fig. 9. For example, in the
wafer movement conguration #1, NiFeCr+NiFe seed deposition
requires wafer transferring from chamber F to chamber D and as
the moisture level in transfer mode got higher and higher, wafer-
to-wafer (WTW) GMR ratio is gradually reduced from wafer #1 to
wafer #11 and the GMR ratio range over mean (R/M) reached
about 7%. While for conguration #2, such R/M was reduced to
o3%, by eliminating the impurity impact on two critical
interfaces: NiFeCr/NiFe and NiFe/PtMn interfaces (i.e. seed/AFM/
SAF were processed with the same chamber F and were not
exposed to the transfer mode). However, spacer Cu deposition
still required the wafer transferring from F to D, which normally
took a few tens of seconds. By eliminating the interface between
reference layer CoFe and Cu spacer (CoFe/Ru) in conguration #3,
the WTW GMR range over mean was successfully reduced
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X. Peng et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910 2909

to 0.5%, while the average GMR ratio did not show obvious process sequence ow are critical to preserve the key interfaces
changes. (not to transfer wafers at critical interfaces). This learning is
To reduce the interlayer exchange coupling between RL and applicable to CPP-GMR as well.
free layer via Cu spacer, a smoothening treatment in CIP-GMR was
usually employed. This smoothening operation, unfortunately,
required transferring wafers from deposition module D to etching
module E (see Fig. 10). Dual NOL
200

D to E transfer time, sec

When wafers were run in a cascading mode (for fast
throughput) and the background impurity level was high, different
150
impurity absorption level on CoFe RL for odd/even wafers was
resulted due to their transferring time variation (see Fig. 11a). This
100
impurity absorption at CoFe(RL)/Cu interface resulted in the GMR
ratio oscillation as shown in Fig. 11b. By removing the chamber E
smoothening treatment and keeping CoFe(RL)/Cu spacer deposited 50
within the same chamber D (at the expense of slightly higher
interlayer exchange coupling) or reducing the moisture level of the 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
chamber E, we have successfully removed the GMR oscillation
Wafer number
pattern (not shown here).
Dual NOL
20
4. Conclusions
18

GMR ratio, %
The seed layer, SAF material selection and the background 16
impurity effect on the CIP-GMR SV performance have been
studied. It was found that the Ta/NiCr, Ta/NiFeCr, and Ta/Ru are 14
among the best seed layers to promote AFM (111) texture
12
development. For CPP-GMR, Ta/Ru seed is better due to its lower
parasitic resistance than Ta/NiCr counter part. AFM/pinned layer, 10
pinned/Ru and reference layer/Cu spacer interfaces are three of 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
the most critical locations to control the CIP-GMR AFM pinning, Wafer number
SAF coupling and the GMR ratio, respectively. Background oxygen
Fig. 11. (a) Chamber D to chamber E transferring time of odd/even wafers during
and water moisture can signicantly alter the above critical
the DNOL-BSV stack process at the interface highlighted in Fig. 10, and (b), the
interfaces. Employing of UHV system (with better than 109 Torr resulted sheet GMR ratio variation due to the difference of such transferring time
base pressure) and optimized target arrangement and wafer and the impact of background base vacuum.

Fig. 9. Congurations for simple bottom CIP-GMR wafer process and the resulted WTW GMR range over mean.

Fig. 10. Most critical interface in a dual NOL-GMR affected by transferring time.
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2910 X. Peng et al. / Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 321 (2009) 29022910
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Dr. Christoph Mathiu for assistance
in MOKE measurement, to Ky Tran for testing support. Managerial
support from Dr. Cal Hardie is also acknowledged.
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