Huge anisotropic magneto-resistance in iridium atomic chains

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that iridium atomic chains exhibit extremely large magnetic anisotropy and significant anisotropic magnetoresistance, making them promising for nanospintronics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive theoretical analysis of magneto-resistance in iridium chains using advanced computational methods, highlighting their potential in spintronics.

Findings

Iridium chains have large magnetic anisotropy.

Iridium chains show sizeable anisotropic magnetoresistance.

Potential for iridium nanostructures in spintronics devices.

Abstract

We analyze in this article the magneto-resistance ratio of finite and infinite iridium and platinum chains. Our calculations, that are based on a combination of non equilibrium Green function techniques and density functional theory, include a fully self-consistent treatment of non-collinear magnetism and of the spin-orbit interaction. They indicate that, in addition to having an extremely large magnetic anisotropy that may overcome the super-paramagnetic limit, infinite and also realistic finite-length iridium chains show sizeable anisotropic magnetoresistance ratios. We therefore propose iridium nanostructures as promising candidates for nanospintronics logic devices.