GIANT MAGNETORESISTANCE IN HYBRID NANOSTRUCTURES

We describe the Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) properties of multilayer ed structures including continuous layers of permalloy (Ni80Fe20) and discontinuous layers of cobalt separated by layers of copper or silver . These hybrid structures exhibit large GMR ratios with high slopes at low field (as high as 7%/Oe). They are also very convenient for an ac curate determination of the angular dependence of the GMR and interest ing to discuss the origin of the GMR. We finally analyse GMR measureme nts performed with the current perpendicular to the layers and separat e the bulk and interface contributions.