Surface Spin-valve Effect

Abstract

We report an observation of spin-valve like hysteresis within a few atomic layers at a ferromagnetic interface. We use phonon spectroscopy of nanometer sized point contacts as an in-situ probe to study the mechanism of the effect. Distinct in energy phonon peaks for contacts with dissimilar nonmagnetic outer electrodes allow to localize the observed spin switching to the top or bottom interfaces for nanometer thin ferromagnetic layers. The mechanism consistent with our data is energetically distinct atomically thin surface spin layers that can form current or field driven surface spin-valves within a single ferromagnetic film.

5 pages, 4 figs, to be published in Nano Letters

References in corpus (1)

• Spectroscopy of phonons and spin torques in magnetic point contacts

Cited by in corpus (11)

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• Spin Torques in Point Contacts to Exchange-Biased Ferromagnetic Films
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