Effect of exchange coupling on magnetic property in Sm-Co/α-Fe layered system

The hysteresis loops as well as the spin distributions of Sm-Co/α-Fe bilayers have been investigated by both three-dimensional (3D) and one-dimensional (1D) micromagnetic calculations, focusing on the effect of the interface exchange coupling under various soft layer thicknesses t^s. The exchange coupling coefficient A^hs between the hard and soft layers varies from 1.8× 10^-6 erg/cm to 0.45× 10^-6 erg/cm, while the soft layer thickness increases from 2 nm to 10 nm. As the exchange coupling decreases, the squareness of the loop gradually deteriorates, both pinning and coercive fields rise up monotonically, and the nucleation field goes down. On the other hand, an increment of the soft layer thickness leads to a significant drop of the nucleation field, the deterioration of the hysteresis loop squareness, and an increase of the remanence. The simulated loops based on the 3D and 1D methods are consistent with each other and in good agreement with the measured loops for Sm-Co/α-Fe multilayers.