Ab initio study of CPP transport in Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers: influence of transition metal impurities

ABSTRACTThe transport properties of Fe(001)/Cr/Fe(001) trilayers are discussed with respect to the influence of transition metal impurities in form of layers. We are able to show that the periodicity of the giant magnetoresistance is directly influenced by the interlayer exchange coupling (IEC). Furthermore, it is observed that the behavior of the IEC strongly depends on whether an impurity overlayer of Mn or V is used. It turns out that the size of the GMR is only little effected by 3d-transition metal impurities, which is in agreement with the experimental findings. The electronic and magnetic properties of the trilayers have been investigated within the fully relativistic, spin-polarized SKKR method and the LDA. The transport properties of the Fe/Cr/Fe systems have been derived from the fully relativistic spin-polarized Kubo-Greenwood equation.