Magnetic Moment Softening and Domain Wall Resistance in Ni Nanowires

Authors

John D. Burton, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Renat F. Sabirianov, University of Nebraska at OmahaFollow
Sitaram S. Jaswal, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
O. N. Mryasov, Seagate Research, Pittsburgh, PA

ORCID IDs

Tsymbal http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6728-5483

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

8-2006

Citation

Physical Review Letters (2006) 97: 077204

doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.077204/p>

Comments

Copyright © 2006, American Physical Society. Used by permission

Abstract

We perform ab initio calculations of the electronic structure and conductance of atomic-size Ni nanowires with domain walls only a few atomic lattice constants wide. We show that the hybridization between noncollinear spin states leads to a reduction of the magnetic moments in the domain wall resulting in the enhancement of the domain wall resistance. Experimental studies of the magnetic moment softening may be feasible with modern techniques such as scanning tunneling spectroscopy.