  We study electron transport through a domain wall in a ferromagnetic nanowire
subject to spin-dependent scattering. A scattering matrix formalism is
developed to address both coherent and incoherent transport properties. The
coherent case corresponds to elastic scattering by static defects, which is
dominant at low temperatures, while the incoherent case provides a
phenomenological description of the inelastic scattering present in real
physical systems at room temperature. It is found that disorder scattering
increases the amount of spin-mixing of transmitted electrons, reducing the
adiabaticity. This leads, in the incoherent case, to a reduction of conductance
through the domain wall as compared to a uniformly magnetized region which is
similar to the giant magnetoresistance effect. In the coherent case, a
reduction of weak localization, together with a suppression of spin-reversing
scattering amplitudes, leads to an enhancement of conductance due to the domain
wall in the regime of strong disorder. The total effect of a domain wall on the
conductance of a nanowire is studied by incorporating the disordered regions on
either side of the wall. It is found that spin-dependent scattering in these
regions increases the domain wall magnetoconductance as compared to the effect
found by considering only the scattering inside the wall. This increase is most
dramatic in the narrow wall limit, but remains significant for wide walls.

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics