Effect of film microstructure on exchange bias of IrMn/CoFe films

Author

Pakala, Mahendra ; Huai, Yiming ; Anderson, Geoff

Author_Institution

Read-Rite Corp., Fremont, CA, USA

Volume

36

Issue

5

fYear

2000

fDate

9/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2620

Lastpage

2622

Abstract

In order to isolate the effects of IrMn film grain size, texture and roughness on the temperature dependence of exchange bias field (H _ex) different multilayers of the configuration UL/CoFe4/IrMn5/Ta3 nm (top) and UL/IrMn5/CoFe-4/Ta3 nm (bottom) were deposited. Underlayers (UL) used were Cu, Ru and [Cu1/Ru1 nm]n with thickness varying between 5-100 nm. The H_ex vs. temperature curve shows a change in shape from a convex type to concave type with increasing the grain size. A qualitative explanation is given based on a thermal fluctuation aftereffect model

Keywords

cobalt alloys; exchange interactions (electron); giant magnetoresistance; grain size; interface roughness; iridium alloys; iron alloys; magnetic multilayers; manganese alloys; spin valves; sputtered coatings; texture; thermal stability; 5 to 100 nm; IrMn-CoFe; activation energy; concave type curve; convex type curve; exchange bias; film microstructure effect; grain size; multilayers; roughness; spin valves; temperature dependence; texture; thermal fluctuation aftereffect model; thermal stability; Atomic force microscopy; Grain size; Magnetic field measurement; Magnetic films; Magnetosphere; Microstructure; Nonhomogeneous media; Temperature dependence; Thermal resistance; X-ray diffraction;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.908535

Filename

908535