Exchange coupling between ferromagnetic and laminated antiferromagnetic layers and its application

Exchange bias (H-ex) and coercivity (H-c) of the NiFe layer in the NiFe/IrMn system can be tuned by inserting either spacer layers such as Cu, Ru, and Ta or ferromagnetic layers such as CoFe into IrMn since the antiferromagnetic spin structure of IrMn is altered in consequence. H-ex usually decreases while H-c increases when the thin discontinued spacer layers are inserted into IrMn. The crossover from the unidirectional exchange-biased coupling to the uniaxial exchange-spring coupling has been successfully observed in the NiFe/[IrMn/CoFe(t)](3)/IrMn (here, 3 means the number of the repeated periods of IrMn/CoFe double layer) system when the thickness of CoFe layer t exceeds 1 nm. It indicates that much of the physics and reversal mechanisms in the exchanged-biased systems are similar to that observed in exchange-spring systems where the hard layer replaces the antiferromagnetic layer as the biasing layer. Uniaxial spin valves (both of current in the plane and current perpendicular to the plane modes) and uniaxial magnetic tunneling junctions have been successfully fabricated by using this uniaxial exchange-spring system. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.