Electronic transport in ferromagnetic conductors with inhomogeneous magnetic order parameter -- domain-wall resistance

TL;DR

This paper develops a microscopic quantum kinetic model to analyze how inhomogeneous magnetic structures like domain walls affect electronic transport in ferromagnetic conductors, revealing that domain-wall resistance can be positive or negative.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive quantum kinetic approach that accounts for elastic and anisotropic spin-flip scattering, providing analytical expressions for domain-wall resistance in long walls.

Findings

Domain-wall resistance can be positive or negative.

Analytical expressions match with existing models in the long wall limit.

The approach includes effects of magnetic impurities and inhomogeneous magnetization.

Abstract

We microscopically derive transport equations for the conduction electrons in ferromagnetic materials with an inhomogeneous magnetization profile. Our quantum kinetic approach includes elastic scattering and anisotropic spin-flip scattering at magnetic impurities. In the diffusive limit, we calculate the resistance through a domain wall and find that the domain-wall resistance can be positive or negative. In the limit of long domain walls we derive analytical expressions and compare them with existing works, which used less general models or different theoretical frameworks.