Magnetism and magnetoresistance in Fe/Cr/V/Cr/Fe

We investigate the electric transport and the magnetic properties of CrnVsCrn systems with respect to the thickness of the V layer. The trilayers are grown in the (001) direction and covered with bee Fe electrodes. For thin Cr layers we observe a quadratic decrease of the magnetic moments with decreasing distance to the V layer. In the case of thick Cr layers the magnetic structure changes to a spindensity wave. The magnetoresistances of the V-containing systems are reduced compared with Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers of the same spacer thickness, whereby this effect is most drastic for current in-plane geometry. The calculations are performed within the fully relativistic screened Korringa Kohn-Rostoker method to obtain magnetic and electronic properties. The giant magnetoresistance is investigated within the fully relativistic Kubo-Greenwood approach.