Current-in-plane transport in granular single layers and multilayers of CoFe in A1(2)O(3)

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2003

Authors

G.N. Kakazei (Author) Other; pogorelov, y. g. (Author) FCUP; Lopes, AML (Author) Other; M. A. Salgueiro da Silva (Author) FCUP; Santos, JAM (Author) Other; sousa, j. b. (Author) FCUP; Cardoso, S (Author) Other; Freitas, PP (Author) Other; Snoeck, E (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials

Vol. 266

Pages: 62-67

ISSN: 0304-8853

Publisher: Elsevier

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 4 Citations

Scopus - 4 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-000-F0K

DOI: 10.1016/s0304-8853(03)00456-6

Abstract (EN): The dependence of current-in-plane resistance (R) and magnetoresistance (MR) of Al2O3(30Angstrom)/[Co80Fe20(13Angstrom)/ Al2O3(30Angstrom)](n) granular layered films on the number of bilayers n was studied. It was found experimentally that R is proportional to 1/n, whereas MR is practically independent of n. According to simple model calculations, significant deviations from R proportional to 1/n should be expected for thick interlayer Al2O3 spacers s(perpendicular to), combined with thin intergrain bridges within the layers, s(parallel to) < s(perpendicular to). The discrepancy between the model and the experiment is attributed to the effects of inhomogeneities in s(parallel to) and s(perpendicular to) and to the presence in each layer of a small amount of large metallic patches, which can effectively shortcut the neighboring layers. For buffer Al2O3 layer thickness above 50Angstrom both R and MR decrease drastically, which is explained by the appearance of more patches at smoother Al2O3 surface. In contrast to the granular layered structures based on SiO2 and HfO2, the annealing in our system lowers MR values, presumably due to the oxidation of CoFe granules already existing in the as-deposited layers.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 6