Effect of diffusion and alloying on the magnetic and transport properties of Fe/V/Fe trilayers

The magnetic and transport properties of the Fe/V/Fe(001) trilayers were studied using the self-consistent Green's function technique based on the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method in the atomic-sphere approximation. The coherent potential approximation was used to describe the effects of interdiffusion and alloying at the interfaces on the properties of the semi-infinite bcc Fe(001)/mFe/nV/mFe/Fe(001) trilayers. The electric conductance was calculated using the Kubo-Landauer formalism, in the current-perpendicular-to-plane geometry. It is shown that a dipole moment is created at the Fe/V interface due to the charge transfer from vanadium to iron, and a small induced magnetic moment is present in the first vanadium layer and is antiparallel to that of iron. The interlayer exchange coupling shows rapid oscillations for small spacer thicknesses, and the interdiffusion and alloying at the interface stabilize the ferromagnetic coupling. Moreover, the interdiffusion reduces the vanadium-induced magnetic moment and increases the iron magnetic moment at the interface. The giant magnetoresistance (GMR) ratio presents damped oscillations as a function of the vanadium spacer thickness. The interdiffusion and the presence of Mn impurities at the interface reduce considerably the GMR ratio and produce results that are in agreement with experimental data.