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We fabricated Ni-Fe/Co/Al-AlO/Co/Ni-Fe/Fe-Mn/Ni-Fe ferromagnetic tunnel junctions in which the bottom Co surface is exposed or not to air. While the MR ratio increased by annealing for the sample in which bottom Co surface was exposed to air, it decreased for the sample in which bottom Co surface was not exposed to air. This suggests that a slightly oxidized layer at the bottom Co/Al interface acts as a diffusion prevention layer. Moreover, the voltage-resistance dependence became asymmetric following annealing of the sample with a non oxidized Co surface and the bias dependence of MR ratio was improved.
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Sato et al. (1999) studied this question.
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