NEUTRON STUDY ON THE SUBJECT OF GIANT MAGNETORESISTANCE EFFECT

Giant magnetoresistance is often discussed with the interfacial roughn ess in magnetization and/or the structural disorder. Polarized neutron s are particularly powerful for probing such a disordered state throug h the magnetic and lattice structure analysis. We renew in this paper our polarized-neutron experiments carried out on the TOP spectrometer installed at the pulsed neutron facility, KENS, investigating the magn etic structure relating to giant magnetoresistance. We confirmed that giant magnetoresistance occurs when the magnetic moment is aligned ant iparallel, with every other layer separated by a nonmagnetic spacer la yer. The diffusive off-specular reflection of magnetic origin suggeste d that the magnetic disorder near the interface might be related to th e appearance of the magnetoresistance effect.