[...]... effect, current induced magnetic reversal, in which the electron current induces a reversal of the magnetisation in magnetic nanostructures This phenomenon would allow magnetic switching in nanoscale devices by all electrical means without the need to apply external magnetic fields In the earlier two volumes, UMS I and II, we described many of the fundamental properties of thin magnetic films and techniques... small magnetic elements It is now recognised that ultimately the atomic scale structure of interfaces need to be described to properly account for the magnetic properties Fundamental properties of ultrathin structures such as the magnetic moment and magnetic anisotropy ultimately have an atomic scale origin and these properties can differ markedly from the corresponding bulk properties Probes of buried... resistance of a magnetically inhomogeneous metallic system that occurs when an applied magnetic field aligns the magnetic moments in different regions of the system Because of this moment alignment, one of the two spin currents is able to traverse the system relatively unimpeded compared to the other Although GMR may be observed in many geometries, applications typically employ ultrathin magnetic multilayers... defect-free structures in the late 90’s The subject of the magnetisation dynamics is intimately linked to the need to switch magnetic nanostructures at ultrahigh rates for information storage applications In Chap 5 Heinrich describes ferromagnetic resonance studies of spin relaxation processes in magnetic metallic layers and multilayers and in Chap 6 Choi and Freeman describe experimental studies of nonequilibrium... understanding of thin film magnetic properties and of methods for characterising thin film structure which underpin the present spintronics revolution The success of spintronics depends on our fundamental understanding of spin polarised electron transport In Chap 2, Butler and Zhang describe computational studies of electron transport in magnetic multilayers using a semiclassical approach based on solution of the... and Sinha discuss the basic concepts of X-ray scattering studies from ultrathin metallic structures and show that the average structure and the atomic scale roughness can be determined with very high precision In Vol IV we deal with the fundamentals of spintronics: magnetoelectronic materials, spin injection and detection, micromagnetics and the development of magnetic random access memory based on... understanding of the fundamental physics of magnetic tunnelling based on a wide range of experimental studies in planar structures and finally consider the wider outlook for spintronic applications based on spin dependent tunneling The phenomenon of indirect exchange coupling between ferromagnetic films was first identified experimentally in 1986 The effect proved to be crucial in the development of spin valve... compared to 6 W.H Butler and X.-G Zhang GMR In GMR, the relative orientation of the magnetic moments in the ferromagnetic layers affect the current through the film Here, the current can change the relative orientation of the magnetization of the layers Another area of increasing interest is magnetic semiconductors and the injection of polarized currents into semiconductors [2.7] This would allow us to combine... Probes of buried interface structures are therefore pivotal in characterising magnetic multilayer structures While there is an abundance of surface sensitive structural probes there are few techniques which allow completed multilayer structures to be probed In Chap 7 Bland and Vaz describe the use of polarised neutron reflection for layer selective magnetometry in thin (nm scale) film structures and show that... the presence of an applied magnetic or electric field, leading to infinite magnetoresistance ratios in future spintronic devices Advances in our understanding of spin polarised electron transport in magnetic multilayers have emphasised the role of the microscopic spin polarised electron scattering processes in magnetotransport and have led to the beginnings of a theoretical understanding of the reciprocal .