A method is developed for the fabrication of sub-100 nm current-perpendicular spin-valve
junctions with low contact resistance. The approach is to use a batch-fabricated trilayer
template with the junction features defined by a metal stencil layer and an undercut in the
insulator. The spin-valve thin film stack is deposited afterwards into the stencil, with the
insulator undercut providing the necessary magnetic isolation. Using this approach,
reproducible spin-current-induced magnetic switching is demonstrated for junctions down to …