Thermal relaxation of exchange bias field in an exchange coupled CoFe/IrMn bilayer

This paper reports that a CoFe/IrMn bilayer was deposited by high vacuum magnetron sputtering on silicon wafer substrate; the thermal relaxation of the CoFe/IrMn bilayer is investigated by means of holding the film in a negative saturation field at various temperatures. The exchange bias decreases with increasing period of time while holding the film in a negative saturation field at a given temperature. Increasing the temperature accelerates the decrease of exchange field. The results can be explained by the quantitative model of the nucleation and growth of antiferromagnetic domains suggested by Xi H W et al. 2007 Phys. Rev. B 75 014434, and it is believed that two energy barriers exist in the investigated temperature range.