S. Sanvito, C.J. Lambert, and J.H. Jefferson

The ballistic conductance and the CPP GMR in metallic magnetic multilayers have been studied as a function of the multilayer composition. The conductance is calculated with an original technique which combines semi-infinite crystalline leads with finite superlattices, described by spd tight-binding Hamiltonians. The results are compared with an effective mass model, which identifies the main features giving rise to high GMR ratios.