Taking into account the thermal effect, we verify that the strong spin relaxation in the capping layer of a magnetic nanopillar significantly affects the current-induced magnetization switching behavior by reducing the critical switching current density. Theoretical calculations reveal that increasing the spin relaxation in the capping layer enhances the spin-polarized current while suppresses the contribution of the spin accumulation to the magnetization switching. The results suggest that the spin-polarized current, rather than the spin accumulation, dominates the current-induced magnetization switching.

We present a formalism determining spin-polarized current and electrochemical potential inside arbitrary electric circuit within diffusive regime for parallel/antiparallel magnetic states. When arbitrary nano-structure is expressed by 3-dimensional (3D) electric circuit, we can determine 3D spin-polarized current and electrochemical potential distributions inside it. We apply this technique to (Cu/Co) pillar structures, where pillar is terminated either by infinitely large Cu layer, or by Cu wire with identical cross-sectional area as pillar itself. We found that infinitely large Cu layers work as a strong spin-scatterers, increasing magnitude of spin-polarized current inside the pillar twice and reducing spin accumulation nearly to zero. As most experimentally studied pillar structures are terminated by such a infinitely large layers, we propose modification of standard Valet-Fert formalism to simply include influence of such infinitely large layers.

We fabricated a current-perpendicular-to-plane pseudo-spin-valve nanopillar comprising a thick and a thin Co rings with deep submicron lateral sizes. The dc current can effectively induce the flux-closure vortex states in the rings with desired chiralities. Abrupt transitions between the vortex states are also realized by the dc current and detected with the giant magnetoresistance effect. Both Oersted field and spin-transfer torque are found important to the magnetic transitions, but the former is dominant. They can be designed to cooperate with each other in the vortex-to-vortex transitions by carefully setting the chirality of the vortex state in the thick Co ring. 72.25.Ba, 85.75.Bb, 73.63.R a) PACS: