Model Hamiltonian for the conductivity oscillations of magnetic multilayers

MIGUEL KIWI; ANA MARÍA LLOIS; RICARDO RAMÍREZ; MARIANA WEISSMANN

PHYSICAL REVIEW B

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 1997 vol. 55 p. 14117 - 14120

1098-0121

The behavior of the electrical conductivity as a function of layer thickness of the superlattice systems Ni/Co, Ni/Cu, and Pd/Ag is studied. Experimentally an oscillatory dependence was found for the first two, while the latter exhibited a monotonous behavior. In our calculations we find that, in these superlattices, the current is carried by the sp-character electrons, which are quite insensitive to the interfaces. To interpret the experimentally observed resistivity oscillations we suggest a scattering mechanism of these carriers against d-characterquantum well states that are present in only one of the superlattice materials, when the well state energy is close to EF .