Influence of temperature on giant magnetoresistance in Co/Cu/Co trilayers.

We present temperature-dependent data for giant magnetoresistance of Co-Cu multilayers for varying Co and Cu layers thickness in the temperature range of 4.2 -300 K. To account for the temperature dependence, we have used semiclassical theoretical approach of the two spin channel currents based on the Fuchs-Sondheimer theory. We have applied our calculation to interpret the temperature effects on the resistivities and giant magnetoresistance of Co/Cu/Co magnetic trilayers. We have found that the decrease in the magnetoresistance from 4.2 K to room temperature is mainly due to an increase in the antiparallel antiferromagnetic and the parallel ferromagnetic alignment resistivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]