Eur. Phys. J. B 77, 31-40 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-00236-9

Quasiparticle dynamics in ferromagnetic compounds of the Co–Fe and Ni–Fe systems

¹ Department of Theoretical Physics, Nekrasov Kostroma State University, 156961 Kostroma, Russia
² Research-Education Center “Physics and Chemistry of High-Energy Systems”, Tomsk State University, 634050 Tomsk, Russia
³ Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), P. de Manuel Lardizabal 4, 20018 San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain
⁴ Departamento de Física de Materiales, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, UPV/EHU, Apdo. 1072, 20018 San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain
⁵ Centro de Física de Materiales CFM-Materials Physics Center MPC, Centro Mixto CSIC-UPV/EHU, 20018 San Sebastián, Spain

Corresponding author: ^a ianechaev@mail.ru

Received: 12 May 2010
Revised: 26 June 2010
Published online: 6 August 2010

Abstract

We report a theoretical study of the quasiparticle lifetime and the quasiparticle mean free path caused by inelastic electron-electron scattering in ferromagnetic compounds of the Co–Fe and Ni–Fe systems. The study is based on spin-polarized calculations, which are performed within the G⁰W⁰ approximation for equiatomic and Co(Ni)-rich compounds, as well as for their constituents. We mainly focus on the spin asymmetry of the quasiparticle properties, which leads to the spin-filtering effect experimentally observed in spin-dependent transport of hot electrons and holes in the systems under study. By comparing with available experimental data on the attenuation length, we estimate the contribution of the inelastic mean free path to this length.