Exchange Bias em filmes de IrMn/Cu/Co

Abstract

Medidas de magnetização (MAG) e de ressonância ferromagnética (FMR) foram usadas para estudar a interação de troca entre a camada antiferromagnética (AFM) de IrMn e a ferromagnética (FM) de Co no sistema IrMn/Cu/Co em função da espessura do Cu. Parâmetros importantes extraídos destas medidas foram comparados com os respectivos valores obtidos dos ajustes dos dados experimentais através de um modelo fenomenológico. Foi observada uma concordância muito boa entre os dados experimentais e os simulados numericamente. Os valores dos campos de anisotropia e de interação, obtidos pelas duas técnicas, MAG e FMR, foram comparados. Observou-se que, apesar das variações angulares experimentais dos campos de Exchange Bias coincidirem para todas as amostras, a intensidade de acoplamento J e os campos de anisotropia das camadas de Co (obtidos via simulação numérica) HU , são diferentes. Para todas as espessuras de Cu, vimos que J FMR > J MAG e FMR U H J MAG e FMR U H < MAG . U H Another important result is that J decreases exponentially with the spacer thickness and is a short-range interaction mediated by pinholes. All these characteristics were explained in the framework of a model considering polycrystalline magnetic layers with independent easy axis distributions and taking into account the rotatable anisotropy. The role of antiferromagnetic grains at the interface with different sizes and different magnetic stability is essential for understanding the behavior of this exchange-biased system. The facts that the observed FMR eb H and MAG eb H are equal (differently from all results known till now) and that the interactions as well as the uniaxial anisotropies are different were attributed to the different processes detected by the techniques. While the static MAG measurement ‘senses’ the sample as a whole, the FMR (which depends on the frequency of the oscillation of the magnetization) detects only the magnetic moments with relaxation times less than the period of the microwave excitation. There are no differences observed between the measurements when there is no contact (and consequently, the interaction) between the IrMn and Co layers