Itinerant Ferromagnetism in the electronic localization limit

Abstract

We present Hall effect, $R_{xy}(H)$, and magnetoresistance, $R_{xx}(H)$, measurements of ultrathin films of Ni, Co and Fe with thicknesses varying between 0.2-8 nm and resistances between 1 M$\Omega$ - 100 $\Omega .$ Both measurements show that films having resistance above a critical value, $R_C$, (thickness below a critical value, $d_C$) show no signs for ferromagnetism. Ferromagnetism appears only for films with $R<R_C$, where $R_C$ is material dependent. We raise the possibility that the reason for the absence of spontaneous magnetization is suppression of itinerant ferromagnetism by electronic disorder in the strong localization regime.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Weak localization in ferromagnets with spin-orbit interaction
• Correlation between the Extraordinary Hall Effect and Resistivity
• Weak localization correction to the anomalous Hall effect in polycrystalline Fe films

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Saturation of the Anomalous Hall Effect in Critically Disordered Ultra-thin CNi3 Films
• Absence of weak antilocalization in ferromagnetic films
• Transport measurements of the spin wave gap of thin Mn films