Strong biquadratic coupling and antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic crossover in NiFe/Cu multilayers
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 1110 W. Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080 (United States)
- IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, California 95120-6099 (United States)
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080 (United States)
We report clear manifestations of biquadratic exchange in the magnetoresistance (MR) of (110) single-crystal NiFe/Cu multilayers. Magnetoresistance curves show a low-field MR minimum which results from an asymmetric canting of the moments away from the applied magnetic field. The stability of these magnetic configurations indicates that the biquadratic coupling can be significantly stronger than the bilinear coupling. In samples with ferromagnetic (F) bilinear coupling the strength of both the bilinear and biquadratic coupling decays in the temperature range from 200 to 400 K. In samples that are coupled antiferromagnetically (AF) at room temperature, we observe a crossover from AF to F bilinear coupling as the temperature is lowered below 200 K. We attribute the strong biquadratic coupling and temperature dependence of the bilinear coupling to pinholes in the Cu spacer layers. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-91ER45439
- OSTI ID:
- 632581
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter, Vol. 56, Issue 13; Other Information: PBD: Oct 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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