Magnetization reversal in CoPt-based hard–soft homocomposites

CoPt-based hard–soft sputtered bilayers with (1 1 1) texture have been produced by appropriate heat treatment of the bottom layer. Two samples with different degrees of chemical ordering of the hard layer are compared. The anisotropy of the hard layer determines its robustness against destabilization from the soft one. Detailed measurements of the soft layer minor hysteresis loop features as a function of the magnetic state of the hard layer are proposed as a means to study the nature of interfacial exchange interactions and the mechanism of magnetization reversal. When hard layer anisotropy is not robust enough, the reversed soft layer can induce irreversible changes to the magnetic structure at the interface leading to a decoupling of exchange field from the magnetic state of the hard layer.     

Monte Carlo study of magnetization reversal in the model of a hard/soft magnetic bilayer

Magnetization reversal in the model of a hard/soft magnetic bilayer under the action of an external magnetic field has been investigated by the Monte Carlo method. Calculations have been performed for three systems: (i) the model without a soft-magnetic layer (hard-magnetic layer), (ii) the model with a soft-magnetic layer of thickness 25 atomic layers (predominantly exchange-coupled system), and (iii) with 50 (weak exchange coupling) atomic layers. The effect of a soft-magnetic phase on the magnetization reversal of the magnetic bilayer and on the formation of a 1D spin spring in the magnetic bilayer has been demonstrated. An inf lection that has been detected on the arch of the hysteresis loop only for the system with weak exchange coupling is completely determined by the behavior of the soft layer in the external magnetic field. The critical fields of magnetization reversal decrease with increasing thickness of the soft phase.     

Direct observation of exchange bias related uncompensated spins at the CoO/Cu interface

Magnetization-induced optical second harmonic generation (MSHG) from the exchange-biased CoO/Cu-(X)/Fe multilayer shows the presence of pinned uncompensated spins at the CoO/Cu interface. For increasing Cu spacer thickness, the exchange bias measured via the hysteresis loop shift diminishes and disappears at X = 3.5 nm, while the MSHG signal still shows a strong magnetic contribution from the CoO interface. This indicates that the magnetic interaction between Fe and CoO layers is sufficiently strong to induce order in the antiferromagnetic layer even at a spacer thickness for which there is no observable hysteresis loop shift.     

Remanence Characteristic of Nanostructure of Hard／Soft Magnetic Multilayered Systems

The relation between microscopic properties (e.e.,layer thickness,easy axis orientation) and the macroscopic magnetic properties such as remanent magnetization of the ferromagnetic multilayer system is investigated based on a simple micromagnet approach.We concentrate on a multilayer design with periodic boundary condition,where alternating soft/hard layers build a nanostructured multilayer.For any easy axis direction in the soft and hard layers a simple explicit expression of remanence of the system has been derived analytically.We find that the remanence clearly depends on the thickness of the soft magnetic layer and is nearly independent of the thickness of hard magnetic layer.On the other hand,the remanence increases upon reducing the angle enclosed by the saturation magnetization and the easy axis directions of soft magnetic layer.However,it is unsensitive to the easy axis direction of hard magnetic layer,but there exists a maximum remanence for a certain easy axis direction of hard magnetic layer.     

Magnetization Reversal in Magnetic Bilayer Systems

Magnetization reversal in magnetic soft/hard bilayer systems is studied analytically by means of a variational method for magnetic energies in a continuum model. The demagnetization curve is involved with nonlinear equations,and the solution is given implicitly in the form of Jacobi functions,which is valid for the total reversal process. Based on the non-trivial solutions, hysteresis loops, as well as the maximum energy product(BH)_(max) versus thicknesses of soft/hard layers are obtained. With regard to(BH)_(max), improvement of the remanence competes with loss of coercive force. As a result, an optimum condition exists. For a given thickness of the hard layer, the optimum condition at which the largest(BH)_(max) could be achieved is discussed, which is slightly different from previous works.     

Superlattice CoCrPt/Ru/CoFe structure fabricated by pulsed laser deposition

The synthetic antiferromagnets (SAF) have been used in spin-valve sensor in data storage industry [1]. We report a new hard/Ru/soft sandwich structure (SHBL) fabricated by pulsed lased deposition to replace current single layer structure for information recording application. SHBL consists of two magnetic layers separated by thin nonmagnetic layers, typically with Ru layers of 0.7-1.2 nm, through which antiferromagnetic coupling is induced. Varying the relative thickness of the magnetic layers, the spacer layers, and the type of magnetic materials can alter magnetic properties of CoCrPt/Ru/CoFe superlattice. The coercivity H_c and grain size of magnetic layer is also dependent on the laser fluence. High laser fluence results in both small grain size and high H_c. The observed phenomena are related to high quenching and deposition rates during PLD at high fluence, resulting in more pronounced phase segregation.     

Magnetization Configuration in Magnetic Trilayer System with Out-of-Plane Component Defect

The equilibrium magnetization configuration, the inducing field and the coercive field in trilayer magnetic materials having an out-of-plane anisotropy defect interlayer between two in-plane anisotropy layers are discussed by both analytical and numerical calculations based on a micromagnet approach. It is shown that the above physical parameters strongly depend on the defect layer such as its thickness and exchange stiffness etc., as well as on the applied fields. It is found that there is a special thickness of defect layer, in which the inducing effect begin to occur, and the critical behavior of inducing field in the vicinity of the special thickness is linearly characterized. Particularly, the magnetic hysteresis shows typical soft hysteresis shape, even though the host material is composed of hard magnets, and the coercivity increases with increasing the thickness of the interlayer.     

Effect of the Semiconductor Spacer on Positive Exchange Bias in the CoNi/Si/FeNi Three-Layer Structure

JETP Letters - Films consisting of a hard magnetic ferromagnet CoNi and a soft magnetic ferromagnet FeNi interacting through a nonmagnetic Si semiconductor spacer are experimentally studied. The...     

Enhanced nucleation fields due to dipolar interactions in nanocomposite magnets

One approach to construct powerful permanent magnets while using less rare-earth elements is to combine a hard magnetic material having a high coercive field with a soft magnetic material having a high saturation magnetization at the nanometer scale and create so-called nanocomposite magnets. If both materials are strongly coupled, exchange forces will form a stable magnet. We use finite element micromagnetics simulations to investigate the changing hysteresis properties for varying arrays of soft magnetic spherical inclusions in a hard magnetic body. We show that the anisotropy arising from dipolar interactions between soft magnetic particles in a hard magnetic matrix can enhance the nucleation field by more than 10% and strongly depends on the arrangement of the inclusions.     

高性能纳米复合永磁材料的模拟计算研究

构造了在软磁相基体中析出规则形状硬磁相的各向同性和各向异性纳米复合永磁材料Pr2Fe14Bα-Fe.利用微磁学的有限元法，模拟计算了样品的磁滞回线.通过对剩磁、矫顽力和最大磁能积与软磁相厚度的关系分析，发现在软磁相厚度为0—12nm的范围内，复合磁体的矫顽力随软磁相厚度的增加而单调下降，而最大磁能积则是在适当的矫顽力和剩磁下达到最高.预计纳米复合Pr2(Fe,Co)14Bα-(Fe,Co)的各向同性磁体的最大磁能积最高可达248kJ/m3，而各向异性磁体则高达784kJ/m3. 关键词： 纳米复合永磁 矫顽力 剩磁 磁能积     

Experimental evidence of dipolar interaction in bilayer nanocomposite magnets

We use magnetic thin film hard/non/soft-magnetic trilayer systems to probe the nature of the hard–soft phase interaction and the role played by dipolar fields in one-dimensional (d) magnetic systems. We have systematically investigated six wedge samples where the thickness of a Cu spacer layer (t _Cu) was gradually changed to create a varying interfacial effect on the interaction between a CoPt hard layer and a Fe soft layer. Magneto-optical Kerr effect was used to obtain the magnetization loops at 28 points on each sample, and the nucleation field (H _N ) as a function of t _Cu was employed to characterize the layer interaction as a function of t _Cu. H _N (t _Cu) show a RKKY oscillatory behavior in addition to a non-negligible dipolar contribution, which had an exponential dependence. The dipolar term, which cannot be always neglected, is affected by the interface roughness and also by the CoPt crystallinity. Therefore, we cannot always consider exchange coupling to be the dominant interaction in one-d hard–soft magnetic bilayer systems, particularly, during magnetic reversal.     

Synthesis and magnetic properties of (CoNiPsoft/CoPhard) n multilayers

Magnetic interactions in Co-Ni-P multilayers consisting of alternating magnetically soft and magnetically hard layers are investigated experimentally. Variations in the shape of magnetization hysteresis loops upon the conjugation of magnetically soft and hard layers are found, along with saturation field oscillations that depend on the number of layer pairs.     

Remanence characteristic of nanostructure of hard/soft magnetic multilayered systems with random easy axis orientations

The macroscopic magnetic properties such as remanent magnetization of the ferromagnetic multilayer system with random easy axis orientations is investigated by using a effective micromagnet approach. The multilayer, which alternating soft/hard layers in which their easy axis orientations is random build a nanostructured multilayer, is considered to meet periodic boundary condition, the dependence of remanence on thickness has been analytical derived. Author find that the remancence clearly depends on the thickness of the soft magnetic layer nearly independence of thickness of hard magnetic layer. this analytical results are in excellent agreement with previous numerical results.     

正交各向异性双层交换弹簧薄膜的磁矩分布

本文以Pt_(84)Co_(16)/TbFeCo双层交换弹簧体系为研究对象,利用微磁学连续模型,研究了软/硬磁层易轴方向相互垂直的新型体系中磁矩的分布特征.研究结果表明,磁矩偏离薄膜法线方向的角度在软磁层中沿膜厚方向的变化速率比硬磁层中的快.通过调节软磁层参数来增加软/硬磁的各向异性常数比、交换能常数比、饱和磁化强度比或外磁场强度,都可有效改变磁矩偏角在软/硬磁层中的变化速率.特别是当软/硬磁各向异性常数比值和交换能常数比值同时增大时,可以使得磁矩在硬磁层中的变化速率快于软磁层中的.而饱和磁化强度比值对磁矩变化速率的影响源于饱和磁化强度的变化会相应地改变各向异性常数,进而改变磁矩在软/硬磁层中磁矩方向变化速率的比值.此体系的磁滞回线显示磁性参数的改变可以显著改变体系的剩磁及饱和磁场.软磁层中的退磁场能及体系的正交各向异性可导致负的成核场.     

Magnetic reversal processes and critical thickness in FePt/α-Fe/FePt trilayers

Magnetic reversal processes of a FePt/α-Fe/FePt trilayer system with in-plane easy axes have been investigated within a micromagnetic approach. It is found that the magnetic reversal process consists of three steps: nucleation of a prototype of domain wall in the soft phase, the evolution as well as the motion of the domain wall from the soft to the hard phase and finally, the magnetic reversal of the hard phase. For small soft layer thickness L^s, the three steps are reduced to one single step, where the magnetizations in the two phases reverses simultaneously and the hysteresis loops are square with nucleation as the coercivity mechanism. As L^s increases, both nucleation and pinning fields decrease. In the meantime, the single-step reversal expands to a standard three-step one and the coercivity mechanism changes from nucleation to pinning. The critical thickness where the coercivity mechanism alters, could be derived analytically, which is found to be inversely proportional to the square root of the crystalline anisotropy of the hard phase. Such a scaling law might provide an easy way to test the present theory. Further increase of L^s leads to the change of the coercivity mechanism from pinning to nucleation.     

Magnetic domain wall creep in the presence of an effective interlayer coupling field

We investigate thermally activated domain wall creep in a system consisting of two ultrathin Co layers with perpendicular anisotropy coupled antiferromagnetically through a 4 nm thick Pt spacer layer. The field driven dynamics of domain walls in the softer Co layer have been measured while keeping the harder Co layer negatively saturated. The effect of the interlayer interaction on the soft layer is interpreted in terms of an effective coupling field, _HJ$H_J$, which results in an asymmetry between the domain wall speeds measured under positive and negative driving fields. We show that creep theory remains valid to describe the observed wall motion when the effective coupling field is included in the creep velocity law as a component of the total field acting on the wall. Using the resultant modified creep expression, we determine a value for the effective coupling field which is consistent with that measured from the shift of the soft layer's minor hysteresis loop. The net antiferromagnetic coupling is attributed to a combination of RKKY and orange-peel coupling.     

Magnetic aftereffect in Co-P trilayer films

This paper reports on the results of experimental investigations of the magnetic properties of a trilayer system that consists of high-coercive polycrystalline and low-coercive amorphous magnetic Co-P layers and a nonmagnetic amorphous Ni-P interlayer. It has been established that the coercive force and the bias field of the hysteresis loop of the low-coercive layer undergo anomalous changes in the range of small thicknesses of the hard magnetic layer. In the same range of thicknesses, a magnetic aftereffect is found to manifest itself, which is unusual for this type of magnetic structures. The observed features are associated primarily with the kinetics of formation of a crystal structure of the high-coercive layer.     

Hard magnetic CoCr layer in ferromagnetic tunnel junctions

In magnetic tunnel junctions a highly spin-polarizing layer is usually exchange biased by an antiferromagnetic layer, an artificial antiferromagnetic layer system or a combination of both, while the magnetically soft layer is free to rotate. The use of a single layer of a hard magnetic material is rarely investigated up to now. In this paper, we present the electric and magnetic properties of tunnel junctions with a hard magnetic Co₈₃Cr₁₇ layer. The soft magnetic electrode consists of either a single Co layer or a Co/Ni₈₀Fe₂₀ bilayer. The magnetic anisotropy and coercive field H_C of the CoCr layer depend on its thickness and the kind of the bottom layer (Cu or Ta) and can vary from H_C=50–700 Oe. It is found that a thin Co cap layer also influences the hysteretic behavior. Furthermore, only small changes after annealing up to 450°C promise a high thermal stability for the application in magnetic tunnel junctions. Measurements of the tunnel magnetoresistance on large area junctions, however, show a strong magnetic coupling of the hard and soft electrodes.     

Effect of exchange coupling on magnetic property in Sm–Co/α-Fe layered system

The hysteresis loops as well as the spin distributions of Sm–Co/α-Fe bilayers have been investigated by both threedimensional(3D) and one-dimensional(1D) micromagnetic calculations, focusing on the effect of the interface exchange coupling under various soft layer thicknesses t~s. The exchange coupling coefficient Ahsbetween the hard and soft layers varies from 1.8 × 10~(-6)erg/cm to 0.45 × 10~(-6)erg/cm, while the soft layer thickness increases from 2 nm to 10 nm. As the exchange coupling decreases, the squareness of the loop gradually deteriorates, both pinning and coercive fields rise up monotonically, and the nucleation field goes down. On the other hand, an increment of the soft layer thickness leads to a significant drop of the nucleation field, the deterioration of the hysteresis loop squareness, and an increase of the remanence. The simulated loops based on the 3D and 1D methods are consistent with each other and in good agreement with the measured loops for Sm–Co/α-Fe multilayers.     

Magnetization and magnetostriction studies of TbFeCo/YFeCo multilayers

Exchange-spring TbFeCo/YFeCo multilayers exhibit interesting magnetic and magnetostrictive properties that are rather promising for application in microsystems. In this paper, we present a study of the effect of the exchange coupling on the magnetic properties of these magnetostrictive multilayers. An exchange bias phenomenon, revealed by a shift of the minor hysteresis loop along the applied field axis, is found as the result of the creation of interfacial domain walls. This effect strongly depends on the magnetic properties of the soft YFeCo layer, and becomes more pronounced at low temperatures due to the enhancement of the magnitude of the exchange coupling between the layers.