The effect of the interlayer on the exchange bias in FeMn/Cu/Co system

The effect of the Cu interlayer on the exchange bias in FeMn/Cu/Co trilayers has been investigated. It is found that a thin interlayer can lower the strength of the exchange coupling between antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic layers. The temperature dependencies of the left and right coercivities show an entirely different behavior, and they are very similar, when the Cu is thin, to those of a FeMn/Co bilayer with a very thin antiferromagnetic layer. With increasing the thickness of the Cu interlayer, the bias field decreases in most cases, but at low temperature it still remains large even when the Cu thickness is as thick as 1.8 nm. When the temperature is lower than 150 K, the dependence of the exchange bias on the Cu interlayer thickness exhibits a fluctuation behavior. This behavior disappears gradually with increasing temperature.

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