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Spin‐mixing conductances: The influence of disorder
Author(s) -
Carva Karel,
Turek Ilja
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
physica status solidi (a)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.532
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1862-6319
pISSN - 1862-6300
DOI - 10.1002/pssa.200723620
Subject(s) - condensed matter physics , ferromagnetism , magnetoresistance , conductance , mixing (physics) , spin (aerodynamics) , lattice (music) , ab initio quantum chemistry methods , chemistry , materials science , magnetic field , physics , thermodynamics , quantum mechanics , organic chemistry , molecule , acoustics
Spin‐transfer torque exerted on a magnetic layer can be viewed as a linear response to the spin accumulation inside an adjacent non‐magnetic layer, information about their response coefficient is provided by the complex spin‐mixing conductance C mix . Substitutional disorder is known to affect the spin‐dependent charge conductances and often reduces strongly the magnetoresistance. Here we examine its impact on C mix of several selected realistic systems. Recently predicted oscillations of C mix as a function of ferromagnetic layer thickness in Ni based junctions might be suppressed by interface interdiffusion, but presented ab initio calculations disprove this possibility. Halfmetallic character of the Heusler compound Co 2 MnSi is destroyed by often encountered antisite disorder; however the impact of this disorder to the predicted C mix is rather weak. Diluted magnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As is an intrinsically disordered system, the analysis of calculations shows that the variation of C mix with substitutional Mn content can be understood in terms of the associated change of the number of carriers, whereas the variation with lattice defects is more complex. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)