Effects of domains on giant magnetoresistance

Abstract
We discuss effects of in-plane magnetic domains on the magnetoresistance of magnetic multilayers. We find that the role of domains is similar to spin-flip processes. If one does not know the domain structure, nor the amount of spin-flip scattering, both mechanisms are equally plausible for producing spin diffusion which suppresses the magnetoresistance for the current perpendicular to the plane of the layers.