  The bias dependence of the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) of Fe/MgO/Fe tunnel
junctions is investigated theoretically with a fully self-consistent scheme
that combines the non-equilibrium Green's functions method with density
functional theory. At voltages smaller than 20 mVolt the I-V characteristics
and the TMR are dominated by resonant transport through narrow interface states
in the minority spin-band. In the parallel configuration this contribution is
quenched by a voltage comparable to the energy width of the interface state,
whereas it persists at all voltages in the anti-parallel configuration. At
higher bias the transport is mainly determined by the relative positions of the
$\Delta_1$ band-edges in the two Fe electrodes, which causes a decrease of the
TMR.

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics;Materials Science