English

Resistance of a domain wall in the quasiclassical approach

Materials Science 2009-11-07 v2 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

Starting from a simple microscopic model, we have derived a kinetic equation for the matrix distribution function. We employed this equation to calculate the conductance GG in a mesoscopic F'/F/F' structure with a domain wall (DW). In the limit of a small exchange energy JJ and an abrupt DW, the conductance of the structure is equal to G2d=4σσ/(σ+σ)LG_{2d}=4\sigma_{\uparrow}\sigma_{\downarrow }/(\sigma_{\uparrow}+\sigma_{\downarrow})L. Assuming that the scattering times for electrons with up and down spins are close to each other we show that the account for a finite width of the DW leads to an increase in this conductance. We have also calculated the spatial distribution of the electric field in the F wire. In the opposite limit of large JJ (adiabatic variation of the magnetization in the DW) the conductance coincides in the main approximation with the conductance of a single domain structure % G_{1d}=(\sigma_{\uparrow}+\sigma_{\downarrow})/L. The account for rotation of the magnetization in the DW leads to a negative correction to this conductance. Our results differ from the results in papers published earlier.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0208520,
  title  = {Resistance of a domain wall in the quasiclassical approach},
  author = {F. S. Bergeret and A. F. Volkov and K. B. Efetov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0208520},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

11 pages; replaced with revised version