AVS 50th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Wednesday Sessions
       Session MI-WeM

Invited Paper MI-WeM3
Current-Induced Precession at Ferromagnetic Interfaces

Wednesday, November 5, 2003, 9:00 am, Room 316

Session: Current-Induced Magnetic Switching and Excitations
Presenter: A. Zangwill, Georgia Institute of Technology
Correspondent: Click to Email
It is well established experimentally that the relative orientation of two ferromagnetic layers in a multilayer film can be switched by passing a sufficiently large current through the film. Often, this "converse GMR" effect is preceded by a precession-type instability of one or both ferromagnetic layers. The signature of this instabilty has also been seen during point contact current injection into a single ferromagnetic film. In this talk, I discuss the precessional phenomenon theoretically using a combination of phenomenological modelling, Boltzmann transport theory, and first-principles quantum mechanical calculations. The key ingredient is a "spin-transfer" torque associated with spin polarization of the electric current. Special emphasis is placed on the possibility of quantitative comparison with experiment.