Patent ID: 8786039

Claim:
A magnetic junction for use in a magnetic device comprising: a reference layer; a nonmagnetic spacer layer; and a free layer having an engineered perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), the free layer including a plurality of magnetic layers, the plurality of magnetic layers including at least one oxide layer and a plurality of conductive layers, the at least one oxide layer being ferromagnetic, interleaved with the plurality of conductive layers and sandwiched between the plurality of conductive layers, the nonmagnetic spacer layer being between the reference layer and the free layer, the engineered PMA including at least one of an insulating insertion layer induced PMA, a stress induced PMA, PMA due to interface symmetry breaking, and a lattice mismatch induced PMA; wherein the magnetic junction is configured such that the free layer is switchable between a plurality of stable magnetic states when a write current is passed through the magnetic junction.