Studies of DC current-driven switching in Ni84Fe16/N/Ni84Fe16 magnetic nanopillars with N-Cu or Cu(Pt)

We provide new data on current-driven switching in Permalloy (Py=Ni84Fe16) based nanopillars at room temperature and 4.2 K that confirm and extend previously published work. We present data for both uncoupled and antiferromagnetically coupled samples. The latter confirm prior results for Co/Cu/Co. We show that inserting sufficiently strong spin-flip-scattering into the Cu layer eliminates hysteretic current-driven switching. This result may have ramifications for understanding current-driven switching