# Quantum Transport in Disorderd Mesoscopic Ferromagnetic Films

## Abstract

The effect of impurity and domain-wall scattering on the electrical conductivity of disordered mesoscopic magnetic thin films is studied by use of computer simulation. The results indicate a reduction of resistivity due to a domain wall, which is consistent with the explanation in terms of the dephasing caused by domain wall.

PACS number: 73.50.-h

The electrical transport properties of ferromagnetic metals have attracted much interest recently see e.g. -. In the present work we study the quantum transport in mesoscopic wires that contain a magnetic domain wall. The motion of the electrons passing through a wire that contain a magnetic domain wall is affected by various physical processes. As the electron approaches the domain wall it experiences a change in potential energy, leading to a reflection and hence to a reduction of the conductivity. However, unless the domain wall is unrealistically narrow (compared to the Fermi wavelength of the electrons) this reduction has been shown to be negligibly small  in the case of a spin-independent collision time. In the presence of a domain wall the spin of the electron will change as the electron passes through the wire. This rotation will lead to a mixing of spin-up and spin-down components. Assuming that the (Boltzmann) collision time is spin-dependent, this mixing then results in an increase of the resistivity, a scenario that has been proposed  to explain the experimental results on thin Co films at room temperature . Spin dependent scattering is the essential ingredient in models for electron transport in magnetic materials that exhibit giant magnetoresistance (GMR) -.

In disordered systems at low temperatures the quantum interference, which becomes important as a result of random spin-independent impurity scattering, also influences strongly the electron transport properties. Theoretical work  has shown that the domain wall suppresses the interference (and thus weak localization) due to impurity scattering, resulting in a decrease of the resistivity. Very recently there have been several experimental studies of a resistivity in a mesoscopic wire of ferromagnetic metals -. The results suggest a reduction of resistivity due to a domain wall, and interestingly the effect increases by lowering the temperature; below 50 K , and 20 K  respectively. This reduction might be related to the quantum decoherence caused by the wall. But other classical mechanisms of the reduction have also been proposed as well  and further studies are needed to clarify its origin. The purpose of the present paper is to study the interplay of the domain wall and spin-independent impurity scattering in more detail and to compare quantitatively the theoretical prediction of the Kubo-formula approach with first-principle quantum mechanical calculations.

The geometry of the model system is shown in Fig.1. The electrons are assumed to move in a two-dimensional metallic strip with a single magnetic domain wall. The Hamiltonian for this model reads

$$=\frac{1}{2m^{}}\left(𝐩e𝐀/c\right)^2\mu _B\sigma 𝐌+V,$$
(1)   
where $`𝐩=(p_x,p_y)`$ is the momentum operator of the electron with effective mass $`m^{}`$, $`\sigma =(\sigma ^x,\sigma ^y,\sigma ^z)`$ denote the Pauli spin matrices. $`𝐌=𝐌(x,y)`$ describes the magnetization in the material and $`V=V(x,y)`$ represents the potential due to non-magnetic impurities. We neglect the vector potential $`𝐀`$ resulting from the sum of the atomic magnetic-dipole contributions because in the case of a thin wire, it has little effect on the electron transport.

Following , we assume that the magnetic domain wall can be described by

$$M_x(x,y)=M_0\mathrm{sech}\left(\frac{xx_0}{\lambda _w}\right)$$
(2)   
and

$$M_z(x,y)=M_0\mathrm{tanh}\left(\frac{xx_0}{\lambda _w}\right),$$
(3)   
with $`x_0`$ the center of the domain wall and $`\lambda _w`$ measures its extent. Note that $`M_z^2(x,y)+M_x^2(x,y)=M_0^2`$ so that at each point $`(x,y)`$ the magnetization is a constant. For a schematic picture of how the magnetization changes with $`x`$ see Fig.1.

As a model for each impurity we take a square potential barrier, i.e.

$$V_n(x,y)=\{\begin{array}{cc}0,& \hfill (x,y)S_n\\ V_0,& \hfill (x,y)S_n\end{array}$$
(4)   
where $`S_n`$ denote the area of square with label $`n`$. The position of the square is drawn from a uniform random distribution, rescaled to an area of size $`L_x\times L_y`$ (see Fig.1). The concentration of impurities, $`c`$ is given by $`c=_{n=1}^NS_n/(L_xL_y)`$ where $`N`$ denotes the total number of impurities. The potential entering in Eq. (1) is given by $`V=V(x,y)=_{n=1}^NV_n(x,y)`$.

We will follow two routes to study the effect of the domain wall on the electrical conductivity: 1) By solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) and 2) through an extension of the Kubo-formula-based theory of Tatara and Fukuyama . The results of these two fundamentally different approaches can be compared by making use of the Landauer formula , relating the conductivity $`\sigma `$ to the tranmission coefficient $`T`$.

In the TDSE approach the procedure to calculate the transmission coefficient $`T`$ consists of three steps. First the incoming electrons are represented by a wave packet with average momentum $`𝐩=\mathrm{}k=(\mathrm{}k_F,0)`$. For concreteness we take this intitial state to represent electrons with spin up only, i.e.

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x,y,t=0)=(\psi _{}(x,y,t=0),\psi _{}(x,y,t=0))=(\psi _{}(x,y,t=0),0),$$
(5)   
and $`𝑑x𝑑y|\mathrm{\Psi }(x,y,t=0)|^2=1`$. The second step involves the solution of the TDSE

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }(x,y,t)}{t}=\mathrm{\Psi }(x,y,t)$$
(6)   
for sufficiently long times. The method we use to solve the TDSE has been described at length elsewhere ,, so we omit details here. As indicated in Fig.1, we place imaginary detection screens at various $`x`$positions. The purpose of each screen is to record the accumulated current that passes through it (the wave function is not modified by this detection process). Dividing the transmitted current (detector 2, see Fig.1) by the incident current (detector 1) yields the transmission coefficient $`T`$. As the simulation package , that we use solves the TDSE subjected to Dirichlet boundary conditions, some precautions have to be taken in order to suppress artifacts due to reflections from the boundaries at $`x=0,x=L`$. We have chosen to add to $`V`$, an imaginary linear potential that is non-zero near the edges of the sample, as indicated by the gray strips in Fig.1, and found that the absorption of intensity that results is adequate for the present purpose.

For numerical work it is convenient to rewrite the TDSE (6) in a dimensionless form. Taking the Fermi wavelength $`\lambda _F`$ as the characteristic length scale of the electrons, the energy is measured in units of the Fermi-energy $`E_F=h^2/(2m\lambda _F^2)`$ and time in units of $`\mathrm{}/E_F`$. For our model simulations we have taken $`L=100\lambda _F`$, $`L_y=6.5\lambda _F`$, $`\mu _BM_0=0.4E_F`$, $`V_0=100E_F`$ and $`S_n=0.25\lambda _F^2`$.

In Figs.2 and 3 we show some snapshots of the probability distribution for the spin-up (top) and spin-down (bottom) part of the electron wave, moving through an impurity-free region. Initially at $`t=0`$, the probability for having electrons with spin-down is zero. As the wave moves to the right, the $`M_x`$ component of the magnetization causes the spin to rotate, resulting in a conversion of electrons with spin-up into electrons with spin-down. For realistic values of the strength (i.e. $`\mu _BM_0<E_F`$) and width of the domain wall (i.e. $`\lambda _w>\lambda _F`$) the conversion will be almost 100 $`\%`$ (for all practical purposes), which leads to a negligibly small reflection . We have chosen $`\lambda _w=2\lambda _F,\mathrm{},16\lambda _F`$, which may be reasonable in the case of a very narrow wire or a strong anisotropy.

In the presence of impurities two new effects appear:

1. As a result of the scattering by the potential barriers electrons will be reflected, leading to a reduction of the transmission coefficient in the sense of Boltzmann transport. At the same time interference among scattered electrons leads to weak localization, and this quantum mechanical effect also suppresses the transmission. Obviously these effects are present in the absence of a domain wall as well.
2. As a result of the presence of the domain wall, electrons that are backscattered and have their spin reversed due to the wall, no longer interfere with electrons whose spin is unchanged. Hence the effect of the domain wall is to reduce the enhanced backscattering due to the interference. On the basis of this argument it is to be expected that in the presence of a domain wall the transmission coefficient can be larger than in the absence of it.

In our simulations the contribution due to quantum interference effects resulting from the presence of the domain wall can be separated from all other contributions by a simple procedure: We compute the ratio of the transmission with $`(T)`$ and without $`(T_0)`$ a domain wall.

Some representative results of our calculations are depicted in Figs.4-8. The simulation data shown are obtained from a single realization of the impurity distribution. No ensemble averaging of the transmission coefficient has been performed. The transmission in the absence of the wall ($`T_0`$) is plotted in Fig. 4 as a function of impurity concentration in the case of $`L_x=16`$. In Figs. 5 and 6 we show the ratio $`T/T_0`$ as a function of the impurity concentration $`c`$, for $`L_x=8`$ and $`L_x=16`$ respectively. The two sets of simulation data in Fig. 5 correspond to different impurity configurations, and the difference between the two is due to a different interference pattern. The enhancement alluded to above is clearly present. The effect of conversion of the electron spin by the wall is amplified considerably by the quantum interference at larger impurity concentration. The larger the scattering the more effective the domain wall is in converting electrons with spin-up into electrons with spin-down.

In Figs.7 and 8 we present results for domain walls of different width $`\lambda _w`$, keeping fixed the area in which the impurities are present ($`L_x=4`$, and $`L_x=8`$ respectively). The net result of increasing $`\lambda _w`$ in this case is to reduce the effectiveness of the $`M_x\sigma ^x`$ term in the Hamiltonian. Indeed by increasing $`\lambda _w`$, $`M_x(x,y)`$ becomes more smooth, hence less effective in the sense that less electrons flip their spin.

Let us compare these results with the analytical result based on Kubo formula, which is obtained by extending the theory of Tatara and Fukuyama . In the absence of domain wall the conductivity in two dimensions with the effect of weak localization taken into account is given by

$`\sigma _0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2n\tau }{m}}{\displaystyle \frac{2e^2}{\pi \mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q^2}}`$ (7)   
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{h}}n\lambda _Fl\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _F}{l}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{L_x}{L_y}}\right),`$ (8)   
where $`n`$ is the electron density, $`\tau `$ and $`l(\mathrm{}k_F\tau /m)`$ being the elastic lifetime and the mean free path, respectively. We have carried out the $`q`$-summation in one dimension, since $`L_y`$ is much smaller than the inelastic diffusion length in the absence of the wall, which should be regarded as infinity in the simulation here. The transmission coefficient $`T_0`$ is related to the conductivity by $`\sigma _0=(e^2/h)(L_x/L_y)[T_0/(1T_0)]`$ and thus

$$T_0\frac{\beta }{\beta +\nu c}\left[1\frac{\nu c^2}{\beta +\nu c}\frac{2}{\pi ^3}\frac{1}{\alpha }\frac{L_x}{L_y}\right],$$
(9)   
where $`\beta n\lambda _F^2\alpha `$, $`\nu (L_x/L_y)`$ and the mean free path is related to $`c`$ through $`l\alpha \lambda _F/c`$. We treat $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ as fitting parameters. The solid curve in Fig. 4 is obtained for $`\alpha =0.05`$ and $`\beta =6`$ (or equivalently $`l0.5\lambda _F3k_F^1`$ for $`c=0.1\%`$, which appears to be reasonable). The dotted line is the classical contribution to $`T_0`$ (i.e. the first term in (9)) and it is larger than $`T_0`$ at large $`c`$.

In the presence of a domain wall the conductivity is expressed as

$$\sigma =\frac{e^2}{h}nl\lambda _F\left[1\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}\frac{\lambda _F^2}{\lambda _wL}\frac{2}{\pi ^2}\frac{\lambda _F}{l}\left(\frac{L_w}{L_y}\mathrm{tan}^1\frac{L_x}{\pi L_w}\right)\right],$$
(10)   
where the second term is the classical contribution from the wall reflection and the third term is a weak localization correction with the effect of the wall included. The effect of the wall is to cause dephasing among the electron as is represented by the inelastic diffusion length, $`L_w\sqrt{D\tau _w}`$. Here $`\tau _w`$ is the inelastic lifetime due to the spin-flip scattering by the wall, $`\tau _w^1(\lambda _FE_F)^2/(24\pi ^2\lambda _wL_x\mathrm{\Delta }^2\tau )`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _BM_0`$ denoting the Zeeman splitting). The expression of $`T/T_0`$ is obtained as

$$\frac{T}{T_0}=1+\frac{\nu c^2}{\beta +\nu c}\frac{1}{\alpha }\left[\frac{2}{\pi ^3}\frac{L_x}{L_y}\left(1\frac{\pi L_w}{L_x}\mathrm{tan}^1\frac{L_x}{\pi L_w}\right)\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}\frac{\lambda _F^2}{\lambda _wL_x}\right].$$
(11)   
The result is plotted as solid lines in Figs. 5-8. The classical contribution (the last term) is negligibly small compared with the quantum correction in the region we are interested, and thus the enhancement of the transmission by the wall is seen. We have used the same value of parameter $`\beta =6`$, but with different $`\alpha `$ ($`\alpha =0.05`$ for Fig. 5 but $`\alpha =0.02`$ for Figs. 6-8). We think this dependence of $`\alpha `$ on $`L_x`$ is due to the ambiguity in relating the mean free path in Kubo formula to $`c`$ in the simulation. Results of eq. (11) thus obtained explain the simulation data well.

Acknowledgements   
This work was partially supported by the “Stichting Nationale Computer Faciliteiten (NCF)”, the NWO Priority Program on Massive Parallel Processing and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.