Interfacial resistance and spin flip effects on the magnetoresistance of a current perpendicular to plane spin valve

Abstract

We extend the semiclassical drift diffusion theory of current- perpendicular-to-plane magnetoresistance (MR) to include the realistic effects of spin flip (spin memory loss) at the interfaces and derive the resultant spin transport across a pseudo-spin-valve device. The calculated MR results are compatible with recent experiments, which showed significant effects of interfacial spin flip in metallic multilayers. We present a detailed analysis on the combined effects of interfacial spin flip and interfacial spin-asymmetric scattering on MR, as well as the MR dependence on spin asymmetry of interfacial scattering. Our analysis shows that by optimizing the interfacial resistances, one can mitigate the MR suppressive effects of interfacial spin flip in practical devices. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.