Cooling-field dependence of asymmetric reversal modes for ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic multilayers

Abstract

A numerical investigation of exchange coupled ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic multilayers with a twinned crystal structure for the antiferromagnet is presented. Motivated by recent experimental findings we focus on the influence of the directions of the magnetic field during the initial cooling procedure and during the hysteresis. Upon variation of these directions the ferromagnet displays different reversal modes or even an asymmetric reversal with different kinds of reversal mechanisms for the decreasing and increasing branch of a single hysteresis loop. These findings can be explained within the context of the domain state model for exchange bias.