Epitaxial ferroelectric/giant magnetoresistive heterostructures for magnetosensitive memory cell

Epitaxial ferroelectric/giant magnetoresistive Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O-3/La0.67Ca 0.33MnO3 (PZT/LCMO) heterostructures have been grown onto LaAlO3 (001) sing le crystal by KrF pulsed laser deposition. Main processing parameters have been optimized to preserve giant magnetoresitivity in the LCMO film after d eposition of the top ferroelectric layer. High degree of c-axis orientation and strong in-plane texture, coherent with the substrate, both in template LCMO and PZT layers, high dielectric permittivity of 720, remnant polariza tion of 17 mu C/cm(2) of PZT, and magnetoresistivity in LCMO of 28% at H = 0.5 T indicate excellent characteristics of coexisting magnetoresistive and ferroelectric properties. We compare the performance of magnetosensitive m emory cells with La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 and La0.75Sr0.25MnO3 giant magnetoresisti ve electrodes. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)02307 -4].