Abstract The structure dependence of exchange bias in ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic (FM/AF) bilayers has been investigated in detail by extending Slonczewski's `proximity magnetism' idea. Here three important parameters are discussed for FM/AF bilayers, i.e. interfacial bilinear exchange coupling $J_{1}$, interfacial biquadratic (spin-flop) exchange coupling $J_{2}$ and antiferromagnetic layer thickness $t_{\rm AF}$. The results show that both the occurrence and the variety of the exchange bias strongly depend on the above parameters. More importantly, the small spin-flop exchange coupling may result in an exchange bias without the interfacial bilinear exchange coupling. However, in general, the spin-flop exchange coupling cannot result in the exchange bias. The corresponding critical parameters in which the exchange bias will occur or approach saturation are also presented.
Received: 23 September 2007
Revised: 19 November 2007
Accepted manuscript online:
(Magnetic properties of interfaces (multilayers, superlattices, heterostructures))
Fund: Project supported by the National
Natural Sciences Foundation of China (Grant No 10347118) and the
Natural Science Foundation of Education Commission of Jiangsu
Province, China (Grant No 2006KJB140133).
Cite this article:
Xu Xiao-Yong(许小勇), Wang Mao-Hua(王茂华), and Hu Jing-Guo(胡经国) The structure dependence of exchange bias in ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic bilayers 2008 Chin. Phys. B 17 1443
Altmetric calculates a score based on the online attention an article receives. Each coloured thread in the circle represents a different type of online attention. The number in the centre is the Altmetric score. Social media and mainstream news media are the main sources that calculate the score. Reference managers such as Mendeley are also tracked but do not contribute to the score. Older articles often score higher because they have had more time to get noticed. To account for this, Altmetric has included the context data for other articles of a similar age.
