STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF SPUTTERED FEMN NIFE BILAYER THIN-FILMS/

The exchange anisotropy and magnetic properties of FeMn/Fe exchange co upled bilayer thin films with various NiFe [111] crystal axis distribu tions have been investigated. The exchange anisotropy and magnetic pro perties of the exchange coupled films have been found to be very sensi tive to the dispersion of the NiFe [111] crystal axis, i.e. Delta thet a(50). Higher exchange anisotropy field (H-e) is obtained for the FeMn deposited on the highly oriented NiFe film (Delta theta(50) of 2.8 de grees). While lower exchange anisotropy field is obtained for the FeMn film deposited on NiFe film having more random [111] crystal axis dis tribution (Delta theta(50) of 11.8 degrees). Also, the magnetic charac teristics of the exchange coupled films were found to be dependent upo n the [111] orientation distributions of the NiFe films. Very low coer civity H-c// (measured along the easy direction) and large anisotropy field increase (Delta H-k) were found for the sample film of FeMn depo sited on highly oriented NiFe film.