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Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 1643–1646 (1990)

[Issue 13 – 24 September 1990 ]

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Electrical conductivity of magnetic multilayered structures

Peter M. Levy and Shufeng Zhang

Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, New York 10003

Albert Fert

Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Université de Paris(enSud, Bâtiment 510, 91405 Orsay, France

The electrical-transport properties of magnetic multilayered structures are dominated by three ingredients: (1) the scattering within layers that changes from one layer to another, (2) the additional scattering resistivity due to the roughness of the interfaces between layers, and (3) the resistivity that depends on the orientation of the magnetization of the magnetic layers. In the quasiclassical approach the boundary scattering is treated differently from other sources. Here we present a unified treatment of all sources of resistivity, and determine the origin of the giant magnetoresistance observed in Fe/Cr superlattices.

©1990 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v65/p1643
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.65.1643
PACS: 72.10.Fk, 72.15.Gd, 75.50.Rr

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References

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