  Weakly ferromagnetic alloys are being used by several groups in the study of
superconducting/ferromagnetic hybrid systems. Because spin-flip and spin-orbit
scattering in such alloys disrupt the penetration of pair correlations into the
ferromagnetic material, it is desirable to have a direct measurement of the
spin memory length in such alloys. We have measured the spin memory length at
4.2 K in sputtered Pd0.88Ni0.12 and Pd0.987Fe0.013 alloys using methods based
on current-perpendicular-to-plane giant magnetoresistance. The alloys are
incorporated into hybrid spin valves of various types, and the spin memory
length is determined by fits of the Valet-Fert spin-transport equations to data
of magnetoresistance vs. alloy thickness. For the case of PdNi alloy, the
resulting values of the spin memory length are lsf(PdNi) = 2.8 +/- 0.5 nm and
5.4 +/- 0.6 nm, depending on whether or not the PdNi is exchange biased by an
adjacent Permalloy layer. For PdFe, the spin memory length is somewhat longer,
lsf(PdFe) = 9.6 +/- 2 nm, consistent with earlier measurements indicating lower
spin-orbit scattering in that material. Unfortunately, even the longer spin
memory length in PdFe may not be long enough to facilitate observation of
spin-triplet superconducting correlations predicted to occur in
superconducting/ferromagnetic hybrid systems in the presence of magnetic
inhomogeneity.
