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Phys. Rev. B 65, 054408 (2002) (8 pages)

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Spin-dependent electrical transport in ion-beam sputter deposited Fe-Cr multilayers

A. K. Majumdar

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur-208016, India
Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611

A. F. Hebard

Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611

Avinash Singh

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur-208016, India

D. Temple

MCNC, Electronics Technologies Division, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709

(Received 19 August 2001; published 3 January 2002)

The temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity and magnetoresistance of Xe-ion-beam-sputtered Fe-Cr multilayers has been investigated. The electrical resistivity between 5 and 300 K in the fully ferromagnetic state, obtained by applying a field beyond the saturation field (H_sat) necessary for the antiferromagnetic- (AF-) ferromagnetic (FM) field-induced transition, shows evidence of spin-disorder resistivity as in crystalline Fe and an s-d scattering contribution (as in 3d metals and alloys). The sublattice magnetization m(T) in these multilayers has been calculated in terms of the planar and interlayer exchange energies. The additional spin-dependent scattering (T) = (T,H = 0)_AF–(T,H = H_sat)_FM in the AF state over a wide range of temperature is found to be proportional to the sublattice magnetization, both (T) and m(T) reducing along with the antiferromagnetic fraction. At intermediate fields, the spin-dependent part of the electrical resistivity [_s(T)] fits well to the power law _s(T) = b–cT where c is a constant and b and are functions of H. At low fields 2 and the intercept b decreases with H much the same way as the decrease of (T) with T. A phase diagram (T vs H_sat) is obtained for the field-induced AF-to-FM transition. Comparisons are made between the present investigation and similar studies using dc-magnetron-sputtered and molecular-beam-epitaxy-grown Fe-Cr multilayers. ©2002 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v65/e054408
doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.65.054408
PACS: 75.50.Bb, 75.50.Ee, 72.15.Eb, 72.15.Gd        Additional Information

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