Magnetic tunnel junctions with impurities

The influence of impurities, embedded into the isolating spacer (I) between two ferromagnetic electrodes (F), on the I-V curve and tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR), is theoretically investigated. It is shown, that the current and TMR are strongly enhanced in the vicinity of the impurity under the condition that the energy of the electron's bound state on the impurity is close to the Fermi energy. If the position of the impurity inside the barrier is asymmetric, e.g. closer to the one of the interfaces F/I the I-V curve exhibits quasidiode behavior.