Angular dependence of the giant magnetoresistance effect

Abstract

We have studied the angular dependence of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) for ${\mathrm{Ni}}_{80}$ ${\mathrm{Fe}}_{20}$/Ag/Co/Ag and ${\mathrm{Ni}}_{80}$ ${\mathrm{Fe}}_{20}$/Cu/Co/Cu multilayers, in which the Co layers are discontinuous and composed of a collection of clusters. In these structures, the magnetization of the ${\mathrm{Ni}}_{80}$ ${\mathrm{Fe}}_{20}$ layers can be rotated by a small applied field without affecting the remanent magnetization of the Co clusters. We analyze our results with a method that allows us to separate accurately GMR and anisotropic magnetoresistance and we find that the angular dependence of the GMR does not exhibit the features expected to arise from the existence of interface spin-dependent potential steps.