This dissertation presents an investigation on the effects of large scale roughness on the properties of giant magnetoresistive multilayers. The large scale roughness (sigmarms > 5 nm) is introduced into giant magnetoresistive thin films through the substrate. Current-in-plane (CIP) and current-perpendicular-to-the-plane (CPP) thin films were deposited by dc magnetron and triode sputtering. All films were characterized for roughness, magnetic and electronic behavior.;Our research on both pseudo spin valves and exchange-biased spin valves shows that long length scale roughness does not have a significant detrimental effect on GMR thin films. For the CIP films, we find that a decrease in GMR correlates to an increase in minimum film resistivity. as the minimum resistivity increased, the maximum resistivity increased linearly with a slope ∼1. This suggests that the decrease in GMR may primarily be an effect of increased spin-independent scattering resulting from the increased film roughness. The CPP films showed a similar relationship between minimum and maximum resistance. Studying the effect of such large scale substrate roughness is important for applications in which GMR multilayers are deposited on non-standard substrates and buffer layers including flexible media.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:wm.edu/oai:scholarworks.wm.edu:etd-3279 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Creators | Watson, Shannon M. |
| Publisher | W&M ScholarWorks |
| Source Sets | William and Mary |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects |
| Rights | © The Author |
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