Very large giant magnetoresistance of spin valves with specularly reflective oxide layers

We developed a spin valve with oxide specular layers that shows a giant magnetoresistance value of 20%. The spin valve also showed an exchange bias field of over 1000 Oe. The giant magnetoresistance was mainly due to an increase in the sheet resistance change and resulted from additional specular reflection at the interface of the free layer. The method we used was to modify specularly reflective oxide layers of the free and the capping layers.