The current-perpendicular-to-plane ͑CPP͒ magnetotransport of a metallic sample sandwiched by two ideal leads is described at an ab initio level. The so-called ''active'' part of the system is either a trilayer consisting of two magnetic slabs of finite thickness separated by a nonmagnetic spacer or a multilayer formed by alternating magnetic and nonmagnetic layers. We use a transmission matrix formulation of the conductance based on surface Green's functions as formulated by means of the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method. The formalism is extended to the case of lateral supercells with random arrangements of atoms of two types, which in turn allows to deal with specular and diffusive scattering on equal footing, and which is applicable also to the case of noncollinear alignments of the magnetization in the layers. Applications refer to fcc-based Co/Cu/Co͑001͒ trilayers and multilayers, considering in detail the effect of substitutional alloying in the spacer and in the magnetic layers, as well as interdiffusion at the interfaces.
We have used the spin-polarized relativistic screened Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker method for layered systems together with the Kubo-Greenwood formalism and the coherent-potential approximation to describe electrical transport properties of magnetic multilayers. We are able to calculate resistivities and magnetoresistance of model structures with no adjustable parameters by simultaneously determining contributions to the giant magnetoresistance of multilayers coming from both the electronic structure and spin-dependent scattering off impurities. ͓S0163-1829͑99͒05125-5͔
The oscillatory behavior of the magnetic-anisotropy energy in different types of Co n multilayers on a Cu͑100͒ substrate, including free surfaces, capped surfaces, and Co/Cu spacer systems, is shown in terms of ab initio-like calculations using the self-consistent fully relativistic spin-polarized screened Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker method. Deduced from direct representations and discrete ͑linear͒ Fourier transformations with respect to the number of Co layers, a period of two monolayers seems to be characteristic for these oscillations, whereas for a given number of Co layers and viewed with respect to the number of Cu-spacer layers they rapidly approach the value of the magnetic anisotropy energy for the corresponding Co n multilayer on Cu͑100͒ with a semi-infinite Cu cap, the so-called biased value. By excluding the so-called preasymptotic regime a short and a long period of 2.5 and 5.5 monolayers, respectively, can be traced for the oscillations with respect to the number of Cu-spacer layers. All types of oscillations, namely, either with respect to the number of Co layers or with respect to the number of Cu-spacer layers, are analyzed in terms of layer-resolved band-energy contributions to the magnetic-anisotropy energy. Such a layerwise distribution of the magnetic-anisotropy energy allows one not only to characterize different regimes of thicknesses, but also to discuss the effect of the actual interface on the absolute values of the magnetic-anisotropy energy, shown in particular by considering a system with Co/Au interfaces.
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