INPLANE RESISTIVITY AND MAGNETORESISTIVITY STUDY FOR FE AL TRILAYEREDFILMS/

The in plane resistivity and the magnetoresistivity of Fe/Al trilayere d films, deposited on polished single crystal sapphire substrates by a de magnetron sputtering system, were measured in the temperature rang e from 77 K to 295 K. The resistivity of the Fe/Al trilayers increased linearly due to an increase of the electron-phonon interactions with temperature. Also! the magnitude of the resistivity increased rapidly as the layer thickness decreased. The temperature coefficient cu, eval uated as [rho(285 K) - rho(77 K)]/208 rho(285 K), increased monotonica lly with the film layer thickness. In the magnetoresistivity measureme nts, the magnitude of the magnetoresistivity change Delta rho[= rho(H) -rho(0)] increased systematically with decreasing layer thickness, reg ardless of the applied magnetic field direction. To explain these resu lts, it was pointed out that the size effect appeared in the samples f or a layer thickness comparable to the mean free path of the conductio n electrons.