Paulo COELHO defends his PhD on Tuesday 30th October, 2pm, at the CNRS conference room (25 rue des Martyrs). An access request is required before hand, is you wish to attend.

This thesis is a study of spin transfer torque in double barrier magnetic tunnel junction for STT-MRAM applications. In these double barrier junctions, spin transfer torque can be tuned by the relative orientation of magnetizations in the two reference layers. Two operating modes can thus be defined: write and read modes. In write mode, the critical current for storage layer switching is reduced compared with a standard junction, which reduces the power consumption. In read mode, information stays stable even if a reasonably large current is applied, which enables fast reading. The obtained results deal with spin transfer torque in double barrier junctions with in-plane and out-of-plane magnetizations , as well as material optimization for double junctions with perpendicular magnetization.