EFFECT OF IMPURITIES AND EFFECTIVE MASSES ON SPIN-DEPENDENT ELECTRICAL TRANSPORT IN FERROMAGNET-NORMAL METAL-FERROMAGNET HYBRID JUNCTIONS

ZHEN-GANG ZHU, GANG SU,∗ BIAO JIN and QING-RONG ZHENG

Department of Physics, The Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 3908, Beijing 100039, China ∗gsu@gscas.ac.cn

Received 24 February 2002

The effect of nonmagnetic impurities and the effective masses on the spin-dependent transport in a ferromagnet-normal metal-ferromagnet junction is investigated on the basis of a two-band model. Our results show that impurities and the effective masses of electrons in two ferromagnetic electrodes have remarkable effects on the behaviors of the conductance, namely, both affect the oscillating amplitudes, periods, as well as the positions of the resonant peaks of the conductance considerably. The impurity tends to suppress the amplitudes of the conductance, and makes the spin-valve effect less obvious, but under certain conditions the phenomenon of the so-called impurity-induced resonant tunneling is clearly observed. The impurity and the effective mass both can lead to nonmonotonous oscillation of the junction magnetoresistance (JMR) with the incident energy and the thickness of the normal metal. It is also observed that a smaller difference of the effective masses of electrons in two ferromagnetic electrodes would give rise to a larger amplitude of the JMR.

PACS number(s): 75.70.Cn, 73.40.Jn, 73.40.Gk