CoFe/Ir/CoFe artificial antiferromagnetic sandwich as a hard magnetic layer in hard-soft GMR sensors

Author

Colis, S. ; Dinia, A. ; Ulhaq-Bouillet, C.

Author_Institution

Inst. de Phys. et Chimie des Mater., Strasbourg, France

Volume

37

Issue

4

fYear

2001

fDate

7/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1736

Lastpage

1738

Abstract

We report on the magnetic and transport properties of CoFe_{3 nm}/Ir_{0.5 nm}/CoFe_{3 nm} and CoFe_{1.5 nm}/Ir_{0.5 nm}/CoFe_{3 nm} sandwiches, grown by ion beam sputtering. The sandwich with identical CoFe thicknesses presents a small rigidity and no plateau around zero field. For the same coupling strength, this rigidity and the plateau are strongly improved for the sandwich with asymmetrical CoFe thicknesses. In both cases, when the thicker layer is on the top or on the bottom of the AAF, coercive fields H_c of 600 Oe are obtained. However, the GMR plateau is only slightly improved for asymmetric sandwiches, probably due to lateral coupling fluctuations. Roughness analysis and TEM observations have been made in order to confirm the last hypothesis

Keywords

antiferromagnetic materials; cobalt alloys; giant magnetoresistance; iridium; iron alloys; magnetic sensors; magnetic switching; magnetoresistive devices; spin valves; sputtered coatings; 0.5 nm; 1.5 nm; 3 nm; CoFe-Ir; CoFe/Ir/CoFe artificial antiferromagnetic sandwich; hard magnetic layer; hard-soft GMR sensors; ion beam sputtering; small rigidity; Antiferromagnetic materials; Couplings; Giant magnetoresistance; Infrared sensors; Iron; Magnetic analysis; Magnetic sensors; Magnetic separation; Magnetization; Soft magnetic materials;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.950953

Filename

950953