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Strong Interfacial Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in Exchange-Biased NiO/Co/Au and NiO/Co/NiO Layered Systems

Authors :
Mateusz Kowacz
Piotr Kuświk
Błażej Anastaziak
Feliks Stobiecki
M. Schmidt
Source :
Materials, Volume 14, Issue 5, Materials, Vol 14, Iss 1237, p 1237 (2021)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2021.

Abstract

The ability to induce and control the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) of ferromagnetic layers has been widely investigated, especially those that offer additional functionalities (e.g., skyrmion stabilization, voltage-based magnetization switching, rapid propagation of domain walls). Out-of-plane magnetized ferromagnetic layers in direct contact with an oxide belong to this class. Nowadays, investigation of this type of system includes antiferromagnetic oxides (AFOs) because of their potential for new approaches to applied spintronics that exploit the exchange bias (EB) coupling between the ferromagnetic and the AFO layer. Here, we investigate PMA and EB effect in NiO/Co/Au and NiO/Co/NiO layered systems. We show that the coercive and EB fields increase significantly when the Co layer is coupled with two NiO layers, instead of one. Surrounding the Co layer only with NiO layers induces a strong PMA resulting in an out-of-plane magnetized system can be obtained without a heavy metal/ferromagnetic interface. The PMA arises from a significant surface contribution (0.74 mJ/m2) that can be enhanced up to 0.99 mJ/m2 by annealing at moderate temperatures (~450 K). Using field cooling processes for both systems, we demonstrate a wide-ranging control of the exchange bias field without perturbing other magnetic properties of importance.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
19961944
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Materials
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....be8ff90a63ec620fb45f0b8b99e0e6ae
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14051237