Temperature dependent electrical resistivity of a single strand of ferromagnetic single crystalline nanowire

TL;DR

This study measures the electrical resistivity of a single ferromagnetic Ni nanowire across a wide temperature range, revealing how surface scattering, electron-phonon interactions, and spin-wave contributions vary with size.

Contribution

It provides a detailed quantitative analysis of temperature-dependent resistivity in a high-quality single crystalline ferromagnetic nanowire, highlighting size effects on spin-wave suppression.

Findings

Resistivity is dominated by surface scattering at low temperatures.

Electron-phonon contribution characterized by a Debye temperature.

Spin-wave contribution is significantly suppressed in nanoscale wires.

Abstract

We have measured the electrical resistivity of a single strand of a ferromagnetic Ni nanowire of diameter 55 nm using a 4-probe method in the temperature range 3 K-300 K. The wire used is chemically pure and is a high quality oriented single crystalline sample in which the temperature independent residual resistivity is determined predominantly by surface scattering. Precise evaluation of the temperature dependent resistivity ($\rho$) allowed us to identify quantitatively the electron-phonon contribution (characterized by a Debye temperature $\theta_R$) as well as the spin-wave contribution which is significantly suppressed upon size reduction.