GIANT MAGNETORESISTANCE IN MAGNETIC NANOSTRUCTURES

Since its discovery in magnetic multilayers, the giant magnetoresistan ce has become one major research topic in both applied and pure magnet ism. At first, new theories had to be devised to explain the oscillati ng indirect exchange coupling and to understand how spin-dependent tra nsport properties give rise to the giant magnetoresistance. Also, beca use the magnetic multilayers where, at the time, a new class of materi als, a lot of attention has been devoted to the study of their structu ral properties. In this paper, we review some experimental results and theoretical models on GMR in magnetic multilayers. Then, we present a n overview of the giant magnetoresistance in new nanostructures - gran ular alloys and hybrid systems - with magnetic entities in the form of clusters instead of layers.