Theory of electric transport through Fe/V/Fe trilayers inclu- ding the effect of impurities

The influence of Al and Si impurity layers on the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) and the magnetic properties of Fe/V/Fe(110) trilayers is investigated. The calculations are performed by employing the spinpolarized Kubo-Greenwood approach and the screened Korringa-Rostoker method for layered systems. All calculations are carried out with a fully-relativistic version. Therefore, we are able to consider also anisotropic magnetoresistance effects, which are common in Fe/V systems. We find that the AMR always makes a tiny contribution to the resistivity in alike multilayers so that the magnetoresistance is entirely due to the GMR. A reduction of the GMR due to the Al and Si impurities is observed for current in-plane (CIP) and perpendicular (CPP) geometry. However, in the case of CIP geometry the influence of the impurities decreases with increasing V layer thickness, whereas in the CPP case the difference alternates between 0 and 7 %.