• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.64-67
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• 2002

IrMn pinned spin valve (SV) films with stacks of Ta/NiFe/IrMn/CoFe/Cu/CoFe/NiFe/Ta were prepared by dc sputtering onto thermally oxidized Si (111) substrates at room temperature under a magnetic field of about 100 Oe. The annealing cycle number and temperature dependence of exchange coupling field (H$_{ex}$), magnetoresistance (MR) ratio, and coercivity (H$_{c}$) were investigated. By optimizing the process of deposition and post thermal annealing condition, we obtained the IrMn based SV films with MR ratio of 3.6%, H$_{ex}$ of 1180 Oe for the pinned layer. The H$_{ex}$ is stabilized after the second annealing cycle and it is thought that this SV reveals high thermal stability. The H$_{ex}$ maintained its strength of 600 Oe in operation up to 24$0^{\circ}C$ and decreased monotonically to zero at 27$0^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.32-35
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• 2003

Magnetic funnel Junctions (MTJs) were fabricated on thermally oxidized Si (100) wafers using DC magnetron sputtering. The film Structures were Ta(50 ${\AA}$)/CU(100 ${\AA}$)$Ni_{80}Fe_{20}(20 $ ${\AA}$)/Cu(50 ${\AA}$)/$Mn_{75}Ir_{25}(100 $ ${\AA}$)/$Co_{70}Fe_{30}(25$ ${\AA}$)/Al-O(15 ${\AA}$)/$Co_{70}Fe_{30}(25 $ ${\AA}$)/$Ni_{80}Fe_{20}(t)/Ta(50 $ ${\AA}$), with t=0 ${\AA}$, 100 and 1000 ${\AA}$, respectively. X-ray diffraction has shown improvement of (111) texture of IrMn$_3$ and Cu by annealing. The exchange-biased energy is almost inversely proportional to temperature. The difference between the coercivity H$_c$ and the exchange biased field H$_E$ for t = 0 $_3$ sample is smaller than that for t = 1000 ${\AA}$. For the pinned layer, the decreasing rate of the coercivity with the temperature is higher compared to that of the exchange field, but variation of H$_c$ is similar to that of the exchange field for free layer.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.112-117
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• 2000

We inserted CoO layer in NiO spin-valves to improve on magnetoresistance and exchange coupling field. The magnetoresistance ratio was increased from 4.5 % to 5.5 % with the increase of CoO thickness. We can not find the dependence between (111) texture and exchange coupling by the measurement of XRD of CoO/NiO spin-valves. The surface roughness of CoO layer, 6.1 $\AA$ is twice more than that of NiO layer, 3.1 $\AA$. The increase of exchange coupling field and coercive field in the CoO/NiO spin-valves will be due to increasing roughness. We prepared the NiO/CoO/NiO/CoO/NiO spin-valves to reduce coercive field and the coercive field decreased from 110 Oe to 50 Oe, and the coupling field is not changed from 70 Oe.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.83-87
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• 2011

The vortex-driven magnetization process of micron-sized, exchange-coupled square elements with composition of $Ni_{80}Fe_{20}$ (12 nm)/$Ir_{20}Mn_{80}$ (5 nm) is investigated. The exchange-bias is introduced by field-cooling through the blocking temperature (TB) of the system, whereby Landau-shaped vortex states of the $Ni_{80}Fe_{20}$ layer are imprinted into the $Ir_{20}Mn_{80}$. In the case of zero-field cooling, the exchange-coupling at the ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic interface significantly enhances the vortex stability by increasing the nucleation and annihilation fields, while reducing coercivity and remanence. For the field-cooled elements, the hysteresis loops are shifted along the cooling field axis. The loop shift is attributed to the imprinting of displaced vortex state of $Ni_{80}Fe_{20}$ into $Ir_{20}Mn_{80}$, which leads to asymmetric effective local pinning fields at the interface. The asymmetry of the hysteresis loop and the strength of the exchange-bias field can be tuned by varying the strength of cooling field. Micromagnetic modeling reproduces the experimentally observed vortex-driven magnetization process if the local pinning fields induced by exchange-coupling of the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic layers are taken into account.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.10
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• pp.1060-1065
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• 1996

We have studied the magnetoresistance phenomena on spin valve thin films of antiferromagnetic NiO/CoO. Interlayer coupling oscillates between the antiferrocoupling and ferrocoupling with the variation of Cu thickness. The exchange coupling strength between NiO (antiferromagnetic) and NiFe(ferromagnetic) as a function of NiO texture and interface roughness is investigated by CoO insertion. CoO has significantly higher anisotropy in the (111) plane and interface roughness. It seems that the MR-ratio is increased by CoO inserted films. From the AFM and XRD data, the increase of MR-ratio and exchange field is influenced by the roughness of CoO.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.97-100
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• 2011

Bilayers of soft NiFe (150 nm-420 nm) on hard Ni (150 nm) were prepared by electrodeposition. The process of magnetization reversal in the NiFe/Ni bilayers was then investigated. The hysteresis loop generated by a magnetization reversal of soft NiFe under a positive saturation state of a hard Ni layer shows a shift along the negative field axis, which is clear evidence for the exchange spring effect in the NiFe/Ni bilayers. The dependence of the coercive field $H_c$ and exchange bias field Hex on the thickness of the NiFe layer was also investigated. As the NiFe thickness increases from 150 nm to 420 nm, both $H_c$ and $H_{ex}$ decrease rapidly from $H_c$= 51.7 Oe and $H_{ex}$ = 12.2 Oe, and saturate to $H_c$ = 5.8 Oe and $H_{ex}$ = 3.5 Oe.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.132-136
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• 2002

Enhancement of crystallinity and exchange bias characteristics for NiFe/FeMn/NiFe trilayer with Si buffer layer fabricated by ion-beam deposition were examined. A Si buffer layer promoted (111) texture of fcc crystallities in the initial growth region of NiFe layer deposited on it. FeMn layers deposited on Si/NiFe bilayer exhibited excellent (111) crystal texture. The antiferromagnetic FeMn layer between top and bottom NiFe films with the buffer Si 50 ${\AA}$-thick induced a large exchange coupling field Hex with a different dependence. It was found that H$\sub$ex/ of the bottom and top NiFe films with Si buffer layer revealed large value of about 110 Oe and 300 Oe, respectively. In the comparison of two Ta and Si buffer layers, the NiFe/FeMn/NiFe trilayer with Si could possess larger exchange coupling field and higher crystallinity.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.258-264
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• 1997

Exchange and interlayer couplings between a NiFe ferromagnetic layer and an antiferromagnetic NiO layer in NiO/NiFe/Cu/NiFe spin-valve films prepared by rf/dc magnetron sputtering were investigated. The interlayer coupling field ($H_{int}$ decreased with the Cu layer thickness, and the exchange coupling field $(H_{ex}$ saturated to 90 Oe. the magnetitudes of $H_{ex}$ and $H_{int}$ decreased with increasing thickness of the pinned NiFe layer. The increase of $H_{int}$ with the free NiFe layer may be due to the increased magnetization.

• Proceedings of the Korean Magnestics Society Conference
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.135-135
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• 2003

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.204-209
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• 2012

We measure the ferromagnetic resonance signals in order to analyze the exchange coupling energy due to the uncompensated antiferromagnetic spins in exchange coupled CoFe/MnIr bilayers. The exchange bias fields ($H_{ex}$) and rotatable anisotropy fields ($H_{ra}$) are obtained from the ferromagnetic resonance fields measured with in-plane angle in thermal annealed samples with $t_{AF}$= 0, 3, and 10 nm. The sum of the $H_{ex}$ and $H_{ra}$ do not depend on the MnIr thickness, which means that all the uncompensated AF spins are aligned to one direction in $300^{\circ}C$ annealed samples. Therefore, the uncompensated AF spins are divided into two different parts. One parts are fixed at the interface between CoFe/MnIr bilayers and induces the $H_{ex}$, other parts are rotatable with magnetic field and induces the $H_{ra}$. Finally, the exchange coupling energy can be expressed by the sum of the exchange bias energy and rotatable anisotropy energy.