We report structural and magnetic properties of multilayers composed of thin layers of the half metallic ferromagnetic Heusler compound Co 2 MnGe and layers of Au, Cr and the Heusler compound Cu 2 MnAl. The hysteresis loops measured at low temperatures reveal the existence of an exchange bias field H EB in all of these multilayers. For the [Co 2 MnGe/Au] n multilayer system H EB is largest reaching up to 1 kOe at a temperature of 2 K. We characterize the exchange bias phenomenon in detail and show that it originates from a spin glass type of magnetic order for a thin interlayer at the interfaces. We discuss the results in the light of different models proposed for the explanation of the exchange bias effect.
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