Exchange bias in the Fe/KCoF3 system:: A comprehensive magnetometry study

Exchange bias was studied in the Fe/KCoF3 ferromagnet/antiferromagnet system. KCoF3 can be deposited onto single crystal of Fe, either in the polycrystalline or single crystal form, depending on growth conditions. The samples were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Ga-terminated GaAs (100) wafers. We study effects of the crystal state of the fluoride, thickness of the Fe film, crystallographic orientation of the Fe, and temperature on exchange bias. The structures with single crystal KCoF3 show that the exchange bias is well correlated with the coercivity at low temperatures and vanishes at a temperature close to the Neel temperature. Both the magnitude of the exchange bias and the blocking temperature of the samples with the polycrystalline fluoride were significantly reduced compared to the single crystal structures. As the Fe film thickness was increased, the exchange bias decreased for all samples. In contrast, the blocking temperature remained unchanged for the samples with the single-crystal fluoride. The exchange bias measured along the easy anisotropy axis of the Fe was slightly larger than that measured along the hard axis. In addition, all samples exhibited a weak training effect. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.