Inelastic scattering in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic metal spintronics

TL;DR

This paper investigates how inelastic scattering affects magnetoresistance and spin torques in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic metal spin valves, revealing that ferromagnetic structures are robust while antiferromagnetic ones are partially suppressed.

Contribution

It introduces a ferromagnetic voltage probe model to analyze the impact of inelastic scattering on spintronic effects in both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin valves.

Findings

Giant magnetoresistance and spin transfer torques in ferromagnetic spin valves are robust against strong inelastic scattering.

Antiferromagnetic spin valves experience partial suppression of these effects due to inelastic scattering.

Spacer layer thickness for room temperature operation of antiferromagnetic spin valves is estimated using toy-model calculations.

Abstract

We use a ferromagnetic voltage probe model to study the influence of inelastic scattering on giant magnetoresistance and current-induced torques in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic metal spin valves. The model is based on the Green's function formulation of transport theory and represents spin-dependent and spin-independent inelastic scatterers by interior voltage probes that are constrained to carry respectively no charge current and no spin or charge current. We find that giant magnetoresistance and spin transfer torques in ferromagnetic metal spin valve structures survive arbitrarily strong spin-independent inelastic scattering, while the recently predicted analogous phenomena in antiferromagnetic metal spin valves are partially suppressed. We use toy-model numerical calculations to estimate spacer layer thickness requirements for room temperature operation of antiferromagnetic metal spin valves.