TY - JOUR
T1 - Perpendicular transport through rough interfaces in the metallic regime
AU - Brataas, Arne
AU - Bauer, Gerrit E.W.
N1 - Funding Information:
The effect of the potential steps and different effective masses in the materials on the conductance can be found by concatenation ofeqn (6). This should be done numerically since the expression for the N-layer conductance is very complicated• In summary, we have derived semiclassical expressions for perpendicular transport through disordered interfaces which are exact for the present model. The effect of a different effective mass to the right and to the left of the interface is included in the formalism. In the weak scattering limit the effect of a non-zero average of the random potential on the conductance is found to be of a higher order in the concentration of scatterers n~R and can be neglected in most cases• An experiment to check the theory is proposed which might lead to a deeper understanding of the scattering process and the microscopic structure of disordered interfaces. A simple, semiclassical formula for the giant magneto-conductance of antiferromagnetically coupled magnetic multilayers in terms of the mean free number of traversed interfaces for the majority and minority spins is derived• Acknowledgement--This work is part of the research programme of the "Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM)", which is financially supported by the "Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onder-zoek (NWO)".
PY - 1994
Y1 - 1994
N2 - Perpendicular transport through an interface in the metallic regime is considered. The semi-classical theory presented is based on the Landauer-Büttiker formalism taking into account an effective mass mismatch at the interface and a non-zero average of random scattering potentials. The transmission probability for a given mode is found in terms of the effective mass and the conduction band bottom to the left and to the right of the interface, the Fermi energy, the self-energy of the electron, and the transverse wave vector of the electron. The diffuse and specular contributions to the interface roughness scattering are shown to be equally important in the weak scattering limit. Predictions for the transport properties of interfaces with a low concentration of strongly scattering defects should be accessible to verification by experiments. The theory is applied to the spin-valve effect in magnetic multilayers.
AB - Perpendicular transport through an interface in the metallic regime is considered. The semi-classical theory presented is based on the Landauer-Büttiker formalism taking into account an effective mass mismatch at the interface and a non-zero average of random scattering potentials. The transmission probability for a given mode is found in terms of the effective mass and the conduction band bottom to the left and to the right of the interface, the Fermi energy, the self-energy of the electron, and the transverse wave vector of the electron. The diffuse and specular contributions to the interface roughness scattering are shown to be equally important in the weak scattering limit. Predictions for the transport properties of interfaces with a low concentration of strongly scattering defects should be accessible to verification by experiments. The theory is applied to the spin-valve effect in magnetic multilayers.
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U2 - 10.1016/0038-1101(94)90398-0
DO - 10.1016/0038-1101(94)90398-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0028409948
VL - 37
SP - 1239
EP - 1242
JO - Solid-State Electronics
JF - Solid-State Electronics
SN - 0038-1101
IS - 4-6
ER -