Paper detail

Tensor damping in metallic magnetic multilayers

The mechanism of spin-pumping, described by Tserkovnyak et al., is formally analyzed in the general case of a magnetic multilayer consisting of two or more metallic ferromagnetic (FM) films separated by normal metal (NM) layers. It is shown that the spin-pumping-induced dynamic coupling between FM layers modifies the linearized Gilbert equations in a way that replaces the scalar Gilbert damping constant with a nonlocal matrix of Cartesian damping tensors. The latter are shown to be methodically calculable from a matrix algebra solution of the Valet-Fert transport equations. As an example, explicit analytical results are obtained for a 5-layer (spin-valve) of form NM/FM/NM'/FM/NM. Comparisons with earlier well known results of Tserkovnyak et al. for the related 3-layer FM/NM/FM indicate that the latter inadvertently hid the tensor character of the damping, and instead singled out the diagonal element of the local damping tensor along the axis normal to the plane of the two magnetization vectors. For spin-valve devices of technological interest, the influence of the tensor components of the damping on thermal noise or spin-torque critical currents are strongly weighted by the relative magnitude of the elements of the nonlocal, anisotropic stiffness-field tensor-matrix, and for in-plane magnetized spin-valves are generally more sensitive to the in-plane element of the damping tensor.