Alexandre Reily Rocha and Stefano Sanvito
We present a theoretical study of the
transport properties
of magnetic point contacts under bias.
Our calculations are based on the Keldish's non-equilibrium Green's
function formalism combined with a self-consistent empirical
tight-binding Hamiltonian, which describes both strong ferromagnetism
and
charging effects. We demonstrate that large magnetoresistance solely
due to electronic effects
can be found when a sharp domain wall forms inside a magnetic
atomic-scale point contact. Moreover
we show that the symmetry of the I-V characteristic depends on
the position of the domain wall
in the constriction. In particular diode-like curves can arise when the
domain wall is placed off-center
within the point contact, although the whole structure does not present
any structural asymmetry.