# Suppression of Giant Magnetoresistance by a superconducting contact

## Abstract

We predict that current perpendicular to the plane (CPP) giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in a phase-coherent magnetic multilayer is suppressed when one of the contacts is superconducting. This is a consequence of a superconductivity-induced magneto-resistive (SMR) effect, whereby the conductance of the ferromagnetically aligned state is drastically reduced by superconductivity. To demonstrate this effect, we compute the GMR ratio of clean (Cu/Co)<sub>n</sub>Cu and (Cu/Co)<sub>n</sub>Pb multilayers, described by an ab-initio spd tight binding Hamiltonian. By analyzing a simpler model with two orbitals per site, we also show that the suppression survives in the presence of elastic scattering by impurities.

PACS: 75.50Pa, 74.80Dm, 72.00

During the past decade, electronic properties of hybrid nanostructures have been widely studied, both from a fundamental point of view and for their potential applications. At a fundamental level, new physics associated with such structures arises from the proximity of two electronic ground states with different correlations, which can reveal novel scattering processes not apparent in the separate materials. For example normal-superconducting hybrids, formed when a normal (N) metal or semiconductor is placed in contact with a superconductor (S), have been shown to exhibit a range of unique transport phenomena  associated with Andreev scattering at the N-S boundary. Similarly ferromagnetic (F)-normal multilayers and spin-valves exhibit magnetoresistance properties  associated with spin-filtering by the F-layers. Perhaps the most spectacular of these is giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in magnetic multilayers, whose resistance, with the current perpendicular to the planes of the layers (CPP), can change by more than 100% under the application of a magnetic field. Until recently N-S and F-S nanostructures have been studied in isolation, but during recent months, a number of experiments have demonstrated that N-F-S hybrids exhibit a range of novel features , including a long-range superconducting proximity effect in the F-material, extending over length scales for an excess of the magnetic length $`\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}D}{E_{\mathrm{e}x}}}`$, where $`D`$ is the diffusion coefficient and $`E_{\mathrm{e}x}`$ the exchange splitting.

The aim of this Letter is to address a new phenomenon, namely the effect of superconductivity on CPP-GMR in phase-coherent multilayers of the type (N/F)<sub>n</sub>S, where S is either a superconductor or a normal metal. We shall demonstrate that as superconductivity is induced in the S-contact (eg by lowering the temperature) CPP-GMR is almost completely suppressed. This result is remarkable, since for example CPP-GMR experiments by the Michigan State University group , already employ superconducting contacts. We shall argue that GMR in such experiments is a consequence of spin-flip scattering, which if eliminated, would cause a dramatic suppression of GMR. To demonstrate the superconductivity-induced suppression of GMR, we use the method outlined in  to compute the zero-bias, zero-temperature conductance of the (Cu/Co)<sub>n</sub>Pb multilayer sketched in figure 1, described by an spd tight-binding Hamiltonian, with tight-binding parameters fitted to accurate ab-initio density functional calculations . Since we are interested in a phase-coherent nanostructure in which the magnetic moments of successive Co layers are either parallel or anti-parallel, the conductance in the normal state is given by the Landauer formula

$$G_{\mathrm{N}N}=\frac{e^2}{h}\left(T_{}+T_{}\right),$$
(1)   
where $`T^\sigma =\mathrm{T}rt^\sigma t^\sigma `$, with $`t`$ the multi-channel transmission matrix for the structure. In the superconducting state, equation (1) is replaced by current-voltage relations derived in , and re-derived in , which in the absence of quasi-particle transmission through the superconductor yields

$$G_{\mathrm{N}S}=\frac{4e^2}{h}R_\mathrm{a},$$
(2)   
where $`R_\mathrm{a}=r_\mathrm{a}^\sigma r_\mathrm{a}^\sigma `$ is the Andreev reflection coefficient, which for a spin-singlet superconductor is independent of the spin $`\sigma `$ of the incident quasi-particle. In what follows, when the magnetic moments of adjacent Co layers are aligned (anti-aligned) we denote the conductances by $`G_{\mathrm{N}N}^\mathrm{F}`$, $`G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{F}`$ ($`G_{\mathrm{N}N}^\mathrm{A}`$, $`G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{A}`$) and therefore the GMR ratios are given by $`M_{\mathrm{N}N}=(G_{\mathrm{N}N}^\mathrm{F}G_{\mathrm{N}N}^\mathrm{A})/G_{\mathrm{N}N}^\mathrm{A}`$, $`M_{\mathrm{N}S}=(G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{F}G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{A})/G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{A}`$.

Consider first the case of quasi-ballistic transport in which there is no disorder within the layers, nor at the interface, but the widths of the Co layers are allowed to fluctuate randomly by 1 atomic layer. Such a structure is translationaly invariant in the direction ($`\stackrel{}{r}_{}`$) parallel to the layers, and the Hamiltonian is diagonal in a Bloch basis ($`\stackrel{}{k}_{}`$). Therefore the trace over scattering channels in equation (1) and (2) can be evaluated by computing the scattering matrix at separate $`k_{}`$ points. Figure 2a shows results for the GMR ratio in the normal and superconducting states, obtained by summing over $`510^3`$ $`k_{}`$ points, and clearly demonstrates a dramatic superconductivity-induced suppression of GMR. Figure 2b and 2c show results for the individual conductances (note the difference in scales) and demonstrate that the GMR ratio $`M_{\mathrm{N}S}`$ is suppressed because $`G_{\mathrm{N}S}^F`$ is drastically reduced compared with $`G_{\mathrm{N}N}^F`$.

To understand this effect, consider the simplest possible model of spin-dependent boundary scattering shown in figure 3, which in the limit of delta-function F layers, reduces to the model used to describe the N-F-S experiment of . Fig 3a (3b) shows a cartoon of a majority (minority) spin, scattering from a series of potential barriers in successive aligned F layers. Since the minority spins see the higher barrier, one expects $`T_{}^\mathrm{F}<T_{}^\mathrm{F}`$. Figures 3c and 3d show the scattering potentials for anti-ferromagnetically aligned layers, for which $`T_{}^\mathrm{A}=T_{}^\mathrm{A}<T_{}^\mathrm{F}`$. For such an ideal structure, GMR arises from the fact that $`T_{}^\mathrm{F}T_{}^\mathrm{F}`$ and $`T_{}^\mathrm{A}`$. In the presence of a single superconducting contact this picture is drastically changed. For ferromagnetically aligned layers, figure 3e shows an incident majority electron scattering from a series of low barriers, which Andreev reflects as a minority hole and then scatters from a series of high barriers (figure 3f). The reverse process occurs for an incident minority electron, illustrating the rigorous result that the Andreev reflection coefficient is spin-independent. Figures 3g and 3h illustrate Andreev reflection in the anti-aligned state. The crucial point illustrated by these sketches is that in presence of a S contact for both the aligned (figures 3e and 3f) and anti-aligned (figures 3g and 3h) states the quasi-particle scatters from N (=4 in the figures) high barriers and N (=4) low barriers and therefore at the level of a classical resistor model, one expects $`G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{F}G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{A}`$.

Of course the rigorous results of figure 2, obtained using an spd Hamiltonian with 36 orbitals per atomic site (spd$`\times `$2 for spin $`\times `$2 for particle-hole degrees of freedom) go far beyond this heuristic argument. In the case of aligned or anti-aligned F-layers the problem involves two independent spin fluids and therefore the Hamiltonian is block-diagonal with 18 orbitals per site. The Hamiltonian used to obtain these results is of the form

$$H_{\mathrm{s}pd}=H_\mathrm{L}+H_{\mathrm{L}M}+H_\mathrm{M}+H_{\mathrm{M}R}+H_\mathrm{R},$$
(3)   
where $`H_\mathrm{L}`$ ($`H_\mathrm{R}`$) describes a semi-infinite left-hand (right-hand) crystalline lead, $`H_{\mathrm{L}M}`$ ($`H_{\mathrm{M}R}`$) is the coupling matrix between surface orbitals on the left (right) lead and the left (right) surface of the magnetic multilayer and $`H_\mathrm{M}`$ is the tight-binding Hamiltonian describing the multilayer. Consider first the retarded Green’s function $`g=(EH_\mathrm{L}H_\mathrm{R}+i0^+)^1`$ of the two decoupled semi-infinite leads. If the surfaces of the leads each contain M atoms, then $`H_{\mathrm{L}M}`$ and $`H_{\mathrm{M}R}`$ are $`36M\times 36M`$ matrices and the portion of $`g`$ involving only matrix elements between orbitals on the left and right lead surfaces is a $`(2\times 36M)\times (2\times 36M)`$ block diagonal matrix $`g^\mathrm{S}`$ whose matrix element $`g_{ij}^\mathrm{S}`$ vanish for $`i,j`$ belonging to different leads. Using a semi-analytic form for $`g^\mathrm{S}`$ derived in , the surface Green function $`G^\mathrm{S}`$ for the leads plus multilayer can be computed by first recursively decimating the Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{L}M}+H_\mathrm{M}+H_{\mathrm{M}R}`$ to yield a $`(72M\times 72M)`$ matrix of couplings $`\stackrel{~}{H}_\mathrm{M}`$ between surface orbitals of the leads, and then computing the inverse

$$G^\mathrm{S}=[(g^\mathrm{S})^1\stackrel{~}{H}_\mathrm{M}]^1.$$
(4)   
Once the full surface Green’s function $`G^\mathrm{S}`$ is known, the scattering matrix elements between open scattering channels are obtained using a generalized Fisher-Lee relations . For the calculation of figure 2, involving fcc crystalline leads aligned along the (110) direction the spd Hamiltonians for the bulk materials are known , but the hopping parameters at the interfaces between different materials are not currently available. As a simplest approximation, these surface couplings were chosen to be the geometric mean of their bulk values.

Despite our use of a highly efficient recursive Green’s function technique to exactly evaluate the scattering matrix of a multilayer, currently available computing resources restrict such a calculation to systems with translational invariance parallel to the planes. To demonstrate that the suppression of CPP-GMR is a generic feature of N-F-S hybrids and to study the effect of elastic impurity scattering, we now examine a reduced two band (s-d) model with a Hamiltonian matrix

$$H=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \underset{¯}{\underset{¯}{H_o}}\underset{¯}{\underset{¯}{h}}& \hfill \underset{¯}{\underset{¯}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\\ \hfill \underset{¯}{\underset{¯}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}^{}& \hfill \underset{¯}{\underset{¯}{H_o}}^{}+\underset{¯}{\underset{¯}{h}}\end{array}\right).$$
(5)   
In this model, $`h_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }=h_i\delta _{ij}\delta _{\alpha \beta }\delta _{\alpha \mathrm{d}}`$ with $`h_i`$ the exchange splitting on site $`i`$ for the d orbital, which vanishes if $`i`$ belongs to a N or S layer and is of magnitude $`h`$ if $`i`$ belongs to a F layer; $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }=\mathrm{\Delta }_i\delta _{ij}\delta _{\alpha \beta }`$ where the superconducting order parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ vanishes if $`i`$ belongs to a N or F layer and equals $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ if $`i`$ belongs to the S region (s-wave superconductivity); $`(H_o)_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }=ϵ_i^\alpha \delta _{\alpha \beta }`$ for $`i=j`$, $`\gamma ^{\alpha \beta }`$ for $`i,j`$ nearest neighbors and $`(H_o)_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }=0`$ otherwise. Note that this model is the minimal model including the possibility of s-d interband scattering, that has been shown to play a crucial rôle in describing the scattering properties of a transition metal multilayer . $`ϵ_i^\alpha `$ is chosen to be a random number, uniformly distributed between $`ϵ^\alpha w/2`$ and $`ϵ^\alpha +w/2`$. We choose the parameters of the model to fit the conductance and the GMR obtained from the spd model for Cu/Co , namely (all quantities are expressed in eV) $`ϵ_{\mathrm{C}u}^\mathrm{s}=7.8`$, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{C}u}^\mathrm{d}=4.0`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{C}u}^{\mathrm{s}s}=2.7`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{C}u}^{\mathrm{d}d}=0.85`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{C}u}^{\mathrm{s}d}=1.1`$, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{C}o}^\mathrm{s}=4.6`$, $`ϵ_{\mathrm{C}o}^\mathrm{d}=2.0`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{C}o}^{\mathrm{s}s}=2.7`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{C}o}^{\mathrm{d}d}=0.85`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{C}o}^{\mathrm{s}d}=0.9`$, $`h=1.6`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=10^3`$, $`w=0.6`$.

Figure 4a shows results for the GMR ratios $`M_{\mathrm{N}N}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{N}S}`$ and demonstrates that the suppression of CPP-GMR by superconductivity survives in the presence of disorder. We have investigated a range of higher disorders and system sizes and find superconductivity-induced GMR suppression in all cases. The disorder used in figure 4 has been chosen to illustrate an additional novel feature, not so-far discussed in the literature, namely that ballistic majority spins can co-exist with diffusive minority spins. For a strictly ballistic structure, the conductance $`G`$ is almost independent of length $`L`$ and the product $`GL`$ varies linearly with $`L`$. This behavior occurs for the majority spin in the N-results of figure 4b. In contrast, for minority spins the product $`G_{\mathrm{N}N}^\mathrm{F}L`$ exhibits a plateau for $`L500`$ AP, which is characteristic of diffusive behavior. The same plateaus are also present in the product $`G_{\mathrm{N}N}^\mathrm{A}L`$ and in the curves of $`G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{A}L`$ and $`G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{F}L`$ shown in figure 4c.

In summary we predict that the presence of a single superconducting contact destroys the sub-gap CPP-GMR of phase-coherent magnetic multilayer. This arises because superconductivity suppresses transport in the majority sub-band in the ferromagnetic alignment, but causes little effect in the antiferromagnetically aligned state. This drastic reduction in $`G_{\mathrm{N}S}^\mathrm{F}`$ compared with $`G_{\mathrm{N}N}^\mathrm{F}`$ is itself a remarkable superconductivity-induced magneto resistance effect. This suppression will be lifted at high biases and finite temperatures, where transport occurs via both Andreev reflection and quasi-particle transmission. Furthermore the presence of spin-flip scattering at the superconducting interface will destroy this effect, because if the spin of an Andreev reflected hole is flipped by such process, before it traverses the multilayer, only the contribution to GMR from layers within a spin-flip scattering length of the N/S interface is suppressed.

Acknowledgments: This work is supported by the EPSRC, the EU TMR Programme and the DERA.