Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. (2015) 69: 10603
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2014140451

Simulation of spin-torque diode microwave detectors

¹ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
² Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
³ Key Laboratory for Information Science of Electromagnetic Waves (MoE), School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, P.R. China

^a e-mail: yanzhou@hku.hk
^b e-mail: ppong@eee.hku.hk

Received: 14 November 2014
Revised: 7 December 2014
Accepted: 10 December 2014
Published online: 15 January 2015

Abstract

Spin-torque microwave detectors (STMD) provide a novel means of measuring the radio-frequency signals. We discuss the influence of dimensional parameters and direct current (DC) bias current on the performance of an STMD. We reveal that the performance of an STMD does not always improve with the current density. We also discuss the influence of the direction of the fixed-layer polarization. The results can be used for the optimization of an STMD.