Symmetry-controlled SrRuO3/SrTiO3/SrRuO3 magnetic tunnel junctions: spin polarization and its relevance to tunneling magnetoresistance

Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), that consist of two ferromagnetic electrodes separated by an insulating barrier layer, have non-trivial fundamental properties associated with spin-dependent tunneling. Especially interesting are fully crystalline MTJs where spin-dependent tunneling is controlled by the symmetry group of wave vector. In this work, using first-principles quantum-transport calculations, we explore spin-dependent tunneling in fully crystalline SrRuO3/SrTiO3/SrRuO3 (001) MTJs and predict tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) of nearly 3000%. We demonstrate that this giant TMR effect is driven by symmetry matching (mismatching) of the incoming and outcoming Bloch states in the SrRuO3 (001) electrodes and evanescent states in the SrTiO3 (001) barrier. We argue that under the conditions of symmetry-controlled transport, spin polarization, whatever definition is used, is not a relevant measure of spin-dependent tunneling. In the presence of diffuse scattering, however, e.g. due to localized states in the band gap of the tunnel barrier, symmetry matching is no longer valid and TMR in SrRuO3/SrTiO3/SrRuO3 (001) MTJs is strongly reduced. Under these conditions, the spin polarization of the interface transmission function becomes a valid measure of TMR. These results provide an important insight into understanding and optimizing TMR in all-oxide MTJs.