Abstract
-Fe(001)/Mg/MgO/Fe- and -Fe(001)/Mg/MgO/Mg/Fe- magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with Mg interlayers are studied by first-principles calculation. An important role of the Mg interlayer is identified to be preserving the preferential transmission of the majority-spin states with \Delta_1 symmetry, which dominate the spin-dependent electron transport of MTJs with MgO barrier. One layer of Mg at the electrode/barrier interface does not decrease the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) ratio nearly as much as one layer of oxide. At certain Mg thickness case the TMR could be strongly influenced by the resonance tunneling states in minority-spin channel, these states are mainly raised from the quantum-well states formed in the Mg interlayer and coupled with interfacial resonance states which are very sensitive to the interface structures.