Effects of Spacer Layer Thickness and Substrate Temperature on the Magnetoresistance of rf-Sputtered CoFe/Cu/NiFe Trilayers

✍ Scribed by Yu, Jun ;Yan, Chong ;Wang, Yun-Bo ;Zhou, Wen-Li ;Xie, Ji-Fan ;Gao, Jun-Xiong ;Zhou, Dong-Xiang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 72 KB
• Volume: 187
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8965
• DOI: 10.1002/1521-396x(200110)187:2<517::aid-pssa517>3.0.co;2-i

✦ Synopsis

A study of the variation of the magnetoresistance in radio frequency magnetron sputtered CoFe/Cu/NiFe tri-layered thin films with thickness t Cu and substrate temperature (T s ) is performed. The magnetoresistance is measured for fields applied parallel to the current at room temperature. The dependence of the magnetoresistance on t Cu indicates the presence of an oscillatory interlayer exchange coupling through the Cu layers with a period of about 1.1 nm. The magnetoresistance is increased as the substrate temperature is decreased. The increase in the magnetoresistance is considered to be caused by the improvement in the sharpness of interfaces. The result indicates that the interfacial spin-dependent scattering is significant for the magnetoresistance in CoFe/Cu/NiFe spin valves.