Influence of interfacial scattering and surface roughness on giant magnetoresistance in Fe/Cr trilayers using ab initio layer potentials

Ab initio full-potential linearized augmented-plane-wave (FP-LAPW) method combined with the semiclassical Boltzmann formalism was employed to calculate the giant magnetoresistance ratio in the trilayers nFe/3Cr/nFe (1≤n≤8). The present results emphasize the very important role of the ferromagnetic layer as well as the interfacial scattering and surface roughness on the giant magnetoresistance effect. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.