Dephasing Effects by Ferromagnetic Boundary on Resistivity in Disordered Metallic Layer

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates how ferromagnetic boundary layers influence resistivity in disordered metallic layers, revealing dephasing effects that impact magnetoresistance at low temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical model showing that ferromagnetic interfaces induce electron dephasing affecting resistivity, especially under parallel magnetization configurations.

Findings

Magnetic boundary causes electron dephasing without altering classical resistivity.

Dephasing suppresses anti-localization effects due to spin-orbit interaction.

Parallel magnetization enhances positive magnetoresistance near switching fields.

Abstract

The resistivity of disordered metallic layer sandwiched by two ferromagnetic layers at low-temperature is investigated theoretically. It is shown that the magnetic field acting at the interface does not affect the classical Boltzmann resistivity but causes a dephasing among electrons in the presence of the spin-orbit interaction, suppressing the anti-localization due to the spin-orbit interaction. The dephasing turns out to be stronger in the case where the magnetization of the two layers is parallel, contributing to a positive magnetoresistance close to a switching field at low temperature.