Exchange paths were investigated for unidirectional exchange coupled 40 mn Nis,Fe,dSO mn NiO films by performing several field cooling experiments. Our experimental data were very consistent with the assumed existence of a variety of exchange paths. Each exchange path seemed to produce its own local unidirectional anisotropy and different local blocking temperature. The measureable exchange coupling could be described as consisting of the sum of the respective exchange paths, each with its own local blocking temperature. On the other hand, an observed blocking temperature of about 230 "C was determined from the exchange paths having the highest local blocking temperature. The local blocking temperatures were thought to be widely distributed, ranging from room temperature to about 230 "C, and the maximum existence probability was most likely at about 215 "C. This indicated that the exchange paths having the local blocking temperature of 215 "C made the largest contribution to the exchange coupling field at room temperature. According to cross sectional transmission electron microscopy observations, this variety of exchange paths was caused by inhomogeneous N&Fe,,-NiO interfaces associated with inter-facial disorder and fluctuating atomic arrangement.
We attempted to fabricate a high-quality Fe3O4 film while satisfying both low-thermal preparation (≦573 K) and film thinness (≦500 Å). X-ray diffractometry showed that our prepared Fe3O4 film was epitaxially grown onto a MgO (100) substrate. The saturation magnetization, resistivity, and Verwey point were, respectively, ∼438 emu/cm3, ∼10 000 μ Ω cm, and ∼110 K. These values were comparable to those of the Fe3O4 bulk. Our experimental results suggested that a high-quality Fe3O4 film could be obtained even under the crucial conditions of the deposition temperature being low (∼523 K) and the film being ultrathinned (∼100 Å).
Short-range antiferromagnetic (speromagnetic) behavior was observed for amorphous BiFeO3 by static magnetic measurements, ac susceptibility (χac) measurement, and 57Fe Mössbauer spectra measurements. The magnetic behavior is classified into three temperature ranges: (i) paramagnet for T≳220 K; (ii) local clustering of spins for 20 K<T<220 K; and (iii) speromagnet in which all spins are frozen into random directions for T<20 K. In the spin freezing state the magnetization shows irreversibility and the χac−T curve has a cusp. The variation of the spin freezing temperature against measuring magnetic field and measuring frequency indicate that the speromagnetic order is very similar to that of spin glass.
Investigations on unidirectional anisotropy and rotational hysteresis loss of exchange coupled Ni81Fe19/NiO films have been conducted to clarify the nature of the exchange coupling mechanism. The interfacial exchange coupling regions, which had been considered to be scattered among the nonexchange coupling regions matrix, were found to be composed of many local regions of two kinds: (i) blockable regions which can give the Ni81Fe19 film a unidirectional anisotropy and (ii) unblockable regions which can have exchange coupling, but cannot give the Ni81Fe19 film unidirectional anisotropy. These unblockable regions begin to change gradually to blockable regions on decreasing the temperature below around 100–110 K. This change is probably caused by the antiferromagnetic NiO anisotropy of unblockable regions being strengthened below that temperature. Moreover, the decrease in size of the exchange coupling field and lowered blocking temperature for tNiO<50 nm (tNiO:NiO film thickness) seems to originate from a decrease of antiferromagnetic NiO anisotropy with decreasing tNiO.
We studied an antiferromagnetic (AF) NiO film for an exchange-biased layer, focusing especially on the relationships between the exchange coupling properties of the Ni81Fe19(top)/NiO(bottom) films and the character of its NiO film. Among the variable sputtering conditions, our experimental data showed that the dominant factor determining the exchange coupling properties was the Ar pressure during the NiO film preparation. Better exchange coupling properties resulted when the NiO film was deposited at low Ar pressure which was attributed to: (i) the smooth surface of the NiO film and (ii) the presence of relatively large particle sizes within it. The former was thought to bring about not only an increase in the number of unidirectional exchange coupled Ni81Fe19/NiO spins, but also the appearance of exchange paths having large local exchange anisotropies. The latter was thought to produce an increase in the AF clusters with a particle volume larger than KeiA/KAFi, where Kei, A, and KAFi are local unidirectional anisotropy, interfacial area of the NiO cluster in contact with the Ni81Fe19 film, and local magnetocrystalline anisotropy of the NiO cluster, respectively. Moreover, the NiO film was thermally stable up to 250 °C, although the AF anisotropy of the NiO film was weakened on increasing the annealing temperature above 250 °C.
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