Large Superconducting Spin Valve Effect and Ultrasmall Exchange Splitting in Epitaxial Rare-Earth-Niobium Trilayers

Epitaxial Ho/Nb/Ho and Dy/Nb/Dy superconducting spin valves show a reversible change in the zero-field critical temperature (Delta T-c0) of similar to 400 mK and an infinite magnetoresistance on changing the relative magnetization of the Ho or Dy layers. Unlike transition-metal superconducting spin valves, which show much smaller Delta T-c0 values, our results can be quantitatively modeled. However, the fits require an extraordinarily low induced exchange splitting which is dramatically lower than known values for rare-earth Fermi-level electrons, implying that new models for the magnetic proximity effect may be required.