Scribd
Upload
32 views1 page

Antiferromagnetic Ferromagnetic Hard Disk: Exchange Bias or Exchange Anisotropy Occurs in Bilayers (Or Multilayers) of

Exchange bias occurs in bilayers of magnetic materials where an antiferromagnetic thin film causes a shift in the magnetization curve of an adjacent ferromagnetic film. This phenomenon is useful for pinning the state of readback heads in hard disk drives. It results from the exchange interaction at the interface between the antiferromagnet and ferromagnet, which pins the interfacial spins of the ferromagnet. Upon reversal of the ferromagnet's moment, energy is required to form a domain wall in the antiferromagnet, shifting the switching field of the ferromagnet. Exchange bias is set by cooling through the Néel temperature of the antiferromagnet in an applied field, breaking the symmetry and influencing domain

Uploaded by

AASHIR AHMAD JASKANI
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
32 views1 page

Antiferromagnetic Ferromagnetic Hard Disk: Exchange Bias or Exchange Anisotropy Occurs in Bilayers (Or Multilayers) of

Exchange bias occurs in bilayers of magnetic materials where an antiferromagnetic thin film causes a shift in the magnetization curve of an adjacent ferromagnetic film. This phenomenon is useful for pinning the state of readback heads in hard disk drives. It results from the exchange interaction at the interface between the antiferromagnet and ferromagnet, which pins the interfacial spins of the ferromagnet. Upon reversal of the ferromagnet's moment, energy is required to form a domain wall in the antiferromagnet, shifting the switching field of the ferromagnet. Exchange bias is set by cooling through the Néel temperature of the antiferromagnet in an applied field, breaking the symmetry and influencing domain

Uploaded by

AASHIR AHMAD JASKANI
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

Exchange bias or exchange anisotropy occurs in bilayers (or multilayers) of

magnetic materials where the hard magnetization behavior of


an antiferromagnetic thin film causes a shift in the soft magnetization curve of
a ferromagnetic film. The exchange bias phenomenon is of tremendous utility in
magnetic recording, where it is used to pin the state of the readback heads of hard
disk drives at exactly their point of maximum sensitivity; hence the term "bias."
The essential physics underlying the phenomenon is the exchange interaction
between the antiferromagnet and ferromagnet at their interface. Since
antiferromagnets have a small or no net magnetization, their spin orientation is
only weakly influenced by an externally applied magnetic field. A soft
ferromagnetic film which is strongly exchange-coupled to the antiferromagnet will
have its interfacial spins pinned. Reversal of the ferromagnet's moment will have
an added energetic cost corresponding to the energy necessary to create a Néel
domain wall within the antiferromagnetic film. The added energy term implies a
shift in the switching field of the ferromagnet. Thus the magnetization curve of an
exchange-biased ferromagnetic film looks like that of the normal ferromagnet
except that is shifted away from the H=0 axis by an amount Hb.
In most well-studied ferromagnet/antiferromagnet bilayers, the Curie
temperature of the ferromagnet is larger than the Néel temperature TNof the
antiferromagnet. This inequality means that the direction of the exchange bias can
be set by cooling through TN in the presence of an applied magnetic field. The
moment of the magnetically ordered ferromagnet will apply an effective field to
the antiferromagnet as it orders, breaking the symmetry and influencing the
formation of domains.
The exchange bias effect is attributed to a ferromagnetic unidirectional anisotropy
formed at the interface between different magnetic phases. Generally, the process
of field cooling from higher temperature is used to obtain ferromagnetic
unidirectional anisotropy in different exchange bias systems. 

You might also like