Europhys. Lett., 71 (2), pp. 297-303 (2005)
DOI: 10.1209/epl/i2005-10078-2

Lateral length scales in exchange bias

I. V. Roshchin¹, O. Petracic^{1, 2}, R. Morales^{1, 3}, Z.-P. Li¹, X. Batlle^{1, 4} and I. K. Schuller<sup>1

1</sup>  Physics Department, University of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093-0319, USA
²  Angewandte Physik, Universität Duisburg-Essen - 47048 Duisburg, Germany
³  Departamento de Física, Universidad de Oviedo - 33007 Oviedo, Spain
⁴  Departament de Física Fonamental, Universitat de Barcelona 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

received 1 April 2005; accepted 20 May 2005
published online 17 June 2005

Abstract
When a ferromagnet is in proximity to an antiferromagnet, lateral length scales such as the respective magnetic domain sizes drastically affect the exchange bias. Bilayers of and either , or are studied using SQUID and spatially resolved MOKE. When the antiferromagnetic domains are larger than or comparable to the ferromagnetic domains, a local, non-averaging exchange bias is observed. This gives rise to unusual and tunable magnetic hysteresis curves.

PACS
75.70.-i - Magnetic properties of thin films, surfaces, and interfaces.
75.60.-d - Domain effects, magnetization curves, and hysteresis.
75.25.+z - Spin arrangements in magnetically ordered materials (including neutron and spin-polarized electron studies, synchrotron-source X-ray scattering, etc.).

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