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Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1641–1644 (1993)

[Issue 10 – 6 September 1993 ]

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Origin of enhanced magnetoresistance of magnetic multilayers: Spin-dependent scattering from magnetic interface states

S. S. P. Parkin

IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, California 95120

The origin of giant magnetoresistance exhibited by ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic multilayered structures is examined by inserting thin layers of a second ferromagnetic material at the interfaces in ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic/ferromagnetic sandwiches. It is generally observed, for many different combinations of metals, that the magnetoresistance depends exponentially on the thickness of the interface layer, with a characteristic length, xi . xi is extremely short and is typically just ~=1.5 to 3 Å at room temperature. At lower temperatures xi becomes even shorter. The giant magnetoresistance effect is thus clearly shown to be determined by the character of the ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic interfaces.

©1993 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v71/p1641
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.71.1641
PACS: 75.70.Cn, 73.50.Jt, 73.61.At

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