The disordered local moment approach to the spin-disorder resistivity of metallic ferromagnets

¹ Institute of Physics AS CR, Na Slovance 2, CZ-182 21, Praha 8, Czech Republic
² Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Charles University, CZ-121 16, Praha 2, Czech Republic
³ Institute of Applied Physics, Vienna University of Technology, A-1020, Vienna, Austria
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy and Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588, USA

^a e-mail: kudrnov@fzu.cz

Abstract

The spin-disorder resistivity (SDR) of transition metal ferromagnets (Fe, Co, Ni), rare-earth ferromagnet Gd, and Ni₂MnSn Heusler alloy is determined from first principles. We identify the SDR at the Curie temperature with the residual resistivity of the corresponding system evaluated in the framework of the disordered local moment (DLM) model which has the zero spin-spin correlation function. The underlying electronic structure is determined in the framework of the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method which employs the coherent potential approximation (CPA) to describe the DLM state. The DLM fixed-spin moment approach is used in the case when the DLM moment collapses. The electronic structure of hcp-Gd is determined using both the open core and LDA+U approaches. The Kubo-Greenwood approach is used to estimate the resistivity. For bcc-Fe and Ni₂MnSn alloy we shall also estimate the temperature-dependent of resistivity below the Curie temperature using a semiempirical approach. Calculations are compared with the supercell Landauer-Büttiker approach developed recently as well as with available experimental data and overall good agreement is obtained.