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- M. Fraune
- II. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen, 52056 Aachen, Germany
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- U. Rüdiger
- II. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen, 52056 Aachen, Germany
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- G. Güntherodt
- II. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen, 52056 Aachen, Germany
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- S. Cardoso
- INESC, Rua Alves Redol 9, 1000-029 Lisboa, Portugal
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- P. Freitas
- INESC, Rua Alves Redol 9, 1000-029 Lisboa, Portugal
書誌事項
- 公開日
- 2000-12-04
- DOI
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- 10.1063/1.1330752
- 公開者
- AIP Publishing
この論文をさがす
説明
<jats:p>NiO/Ni wires have been investigated as a function of their width in order to investigate the size dependence of exchange bias. The samples have been prepared by e-beam lithography and ion milling of ion beam sputtered thin films. For NiO/Ni wires narrower than 3 μm, the exchange bias field significantly depends on the wire width. A NiO/Ni film shows an exchange bias field of −78 Oe whereas the exchange bias field of wires narrower than 200 nm is reduced to approximately −40 Oe. The coercive field of the NiO/Ni film is 28 Oe and increases to 210 Oe for the narrowest wires. The decrease of the exchange bias field for the narrowest wires is consistent with a recent microscopic model of exchange bias where the appearance of a unidirectional anisotropy in ferromagnet/antiferromagnet bilayers has been attributed to the presence of antiferromagnetic domains in the bulk of the antiferromagnet. A possible onset of a transition from a multidomain to a single-domain state of the antiferromagnet as a function of the NiO/Ni wire width seems to be the origin for the observed decrease of the exchange bias field for narrow wires.</jats:p>
収録刊行物
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- Applied Physics Letters
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Applied Physics Letters 77 (23), 3815-3817, 2000-12-04
AIP Publishing