  Voltage-induced dynamic switching in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) is a
writing technique for voltage-controlled magnetoresistive random access memory
(VCMRAM), which is expected to be an ultimate non-volatile memory with
ultra-low power consumption. In conventional dynamic switching, the width of
sub-nanosecond write voltage pulses must be precisely controlled to achieve a
sufficiently low write-error rate (WER). This very narrow tolerance of pulse
width is the biggest technical difficulty in developing VCMRAM. Heavily damped
precessional switching is a writing scheme for VCMRAM with a substantially high
tolerance of pulse width although the minimum WER has been much higher than
that of conventional dynamic switching with an optimum pulse width. In this
study, we theoretically investigate the effect of MTJ shape and the direction
of the applied magnetic field on the WER of heavily damped precessional
switching. The results show that the WER in elliptical-cylinder MTJ can be
several orders of magnitude smaller than that in usual circular-cylinder MTJ
when the external magnetic field is applied parallel to the minor axis of the
ellipse. The reduction in WER is due to the fact that the demagnetization field
narrows the component of the magnetization distribution perpendicular to the
plane direction immediately before the voltage is applied.
