Theoretical and experimental investigation on giant magnetoresistive materials with amorphous ferromagnetic layer

Abstract

Pseudo-spin-valve (PSV) sandwiches using amorphous CoNbZr alloy as soft magnetic layer were fabricated by magnetron sputtering. The giant magnetoresistance (GMR) and its dependence on the thickness of magnetic layer were investigated. Anti-parallel magnetization alignments were observed in the samples with very thin CoNbZr thickness (2–4 nm) and a maximum GMR ratio of 6.5% was obtained. The Camley-Barnas semiclassical model was extended for amorphous layer based magnetic sandwiches by considering that the mixed layers exist between the ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic layer. The calculated results agree with the experimental results very well, indicating that the new model gives a more realistic picture of the physical processes that take place in the magnetic sandwiches. Moreover, the calculated results for amorphous sandwiches also clarify that the occurrence of maximum GMR at very small thickness of amorphous layer is ascribed to the short mean-free-path in amorphous materials.