Conductance of ferromagnetic nanowires

Abstract

The conductance distribution obtained from an ensemble of stretching ferromagnetic nanowires or point contacts do not exhibit peaks near the integer multiples of 2e2/h. This observation has been interpreted as the absence of conductance quantization. In this report, we examine various features of electron transport through the Ni nanowires and clarify the behavior of conductance distribution that is different from gold and copper nanowires. Our study concludes that the tunneling through the closely spaced states near EF that originate from crystal field and spin split 3d states of Ni prevents the plateaus of conductance from forming in the course of stretch.