Role of anisotropy configuration in exchange-biased systems

We present a systematic study of the anisotropy configuration effects on the magnetic properties of exchange-biased ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic (FM/AFM) Co/IrMn bilayers. The interfacial unidirectional anisotropy is set extrinsically via a field cooling procedure with the magnetic field misalign...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Jiménez, E., Camarero, Julio, Perna, Paolo, Mikuszeit, N., Terán, F. J., Sort, Jordi, Nogués, Josep, García-Martín, José Miguel, Hoffmann, A., Dieny, Bernard, Miranda, Rodolfo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2011
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/34912
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/34912
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Antiferromagnetic materials
Coercive force
Ferromagnetic materials
Magnetic anisotropy
Magnetic multilayers
magnetisation reversal
Descripción
Sumario:We present a systematic study of the anisotropy configuration effects on the magnetic properties of exchange-biased ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic (FM/AFM) Co/IrMn bilayers. The interfacial unidirectional anisotropy is set extrinsically via a field cooling procedure with the magnetic field misaligned by an angle βFC with respect to the intrinsic FM uniaxial anisotropy. High resolution angular dependence in-plane resolved Kerr magnetometry measurements have been performed for three different anisotropy arrangements, including collinear βFC = 0∘ and two opposite noncollinear cases. The symmetry breaking of the induced noncollinear configurations results in a peculiar nonsymmetric magnetic behavior of the angular dependence of magnetization reversal, coercivity, and exchange bias. The experimental results are well reproduced without any fitting parameter by using a simple model including the induced anisotropy configuration. Our finding highlights the importance of the relative angle between anisotropies in order to properly account for the magnetic properties of exchange-biased FM/AFM systems.