Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2015) 130: 125
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2015-15125-2

Regular Article

Magnetoresistance behavior of Ni₈₀Fe₂₀/Ru/Ni₈₀Fe₂₀ nanostripes

Information Storage Materials Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117576, Singapore, Singapore

^* e-mail: eleaao@nus.edu.sg

Received: 12 April 2015
Accepted: 16 June 2015
Published online: 3 July 2015

Abstract

We present a systematic investigation on the effects of interlayer coupling on the magnetoresistance (MR) behavior of Ni₈₀Fe₂₀/Ru(/Ni₈₀Fe₂₀ trilayer nanostripes (NSs) as a function of temperature T . By changing from 0.8 nm to 1.7 nm, either a ferromagnetic or an antiferromagnetic (AFM) type of interlayer coupling was achieved, leading to a markedly different MR behavior. We observed that the MR response is a superimposition of AMR and GMR effects, and it is significantly dependent on temperature. For AFM coupled NSs, there is a transition from a pure AFM state to a reversed spin-flop phase due to enhanced ferromagnetic pin-hole coupling at low T. Our experimental results are in good agreement with micromagnetic simulations.