Interface Role in CoFe/IrMn Exchange Biased Systems

Abstract

The authors study the effect of the interface on the coercivity H _c and the exchange field H _ex in CoFe/IrMn systems by comparing the contribution of the interfacial area and the ferromagnetic layer thickness. It is shown that the exchange field only depends on the intrinsic coupling at the interface and thermal effects. By increasing activation temperature T _ACT , the amount of antiferromagnetic material that undergoes reversal during the conditioning time increases. This way shifts the hysteresis loop reproducibly by increasing T _ACT .