Study of MgO tunnel barriers with conducting atomic force microscopy

The local topographic and conducting properties of ultra-thin MgO films with polycrystalline Ru and amorphous CoFeB as lower electrodes were investigated. The local conductance and topography of the ultra-thin MgO films (from 0.5 to 1.0 nm) were simultaneously measured with a modified conducting atomic force microscope (CAFM). The imaging force was carefully chosen in order to avoid structural damages in the insulating layers. The promising results include the decrease of the density of hotspots with large conductance with the thickness of MgO and show that an insulating barrier is obtained at 1 nm thickness.