U.S.-Austria and Germany Cooperative Research on Electrical Transport in Magnetic Multilayers

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This award supports Professor Peter Levy and junior members of his research group at New York University to collaborate in solid state physics research with Professor Peter Weinberger and his research group of the Institute of Electrochemistry of the Technical University of Vienna, Austria. A third member of the collaboration is Professor I. Mertig of the Technical University of Dresden, Germany. . Through collaboration, they expect to develop models and perform calculations that will provide new insights into the factors that control the magnetotransport properties of transition-metal magnetic multilayers. While all three groups are theoretical in their orientation, their efforts are complementary. The US group is focused on analytical and model calculations while the expertise of the Austrian group lies in the ab-initio calculation of electronic structure, magnetic and transport properties of solids. Professor Mertig of Dresden has considerable expertise in the application of multiple scattering theory to the calculation of impurity scattering in ferromagnetic metals. The `giant magnetoresistance` of magnetic multilayers is interesting both for the fundamental physics needed to explain its origins and for its applicability to emerging computer technologies. While there is consensus that this effect comes from the magnetic field changing the spin-dependent scattering of the conduction electrons, the there are many unresolved questions about how this is achieved and which are the dominant factors at different levels of the multiple layers. This trilateral collaboration will address some of those questions, and contribute some of the new understanding of this phenomenon needed before any attempt can be made to manipulate and use it.