Effects of interdiffusion and antiferromagnetic grain alignment on the pinning strength in IrMn /(Co, CoFe) bilayers and multilayers
Ferromagnetic (FM) / antiferromagnetic (AFM) bilayers are widely used in magnetic recording read heads and in magnetic random access memory (MRAM) for pinning of reference layers or synthetic antiferromagnets in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). Processing such devices involves numerous annealing steps at different temperatures, which may lead to interdiffusion at the FM/AFM interface and thus to degradation of interfacial exchange coupling strength. Pinning strength in polycrystalline FM/AFM systems depends on the FM/AFM exchange coupling, as well as on setting of AFM grains, achieved either by annealing or deposition in applied magnetic field. Polarised neutron reflectometry provides a way to get structural and magnetic depth profiles at the FM/AFM interface, as well as to determine net orientation of the AFM lattice. We propose to investigate {Ta/Ru seed / AFM IrMn / FM (Co, CoFe)} superlattices. The pinning strength of the samples with pure Co decreases much faster with annealing than that with CoFe samples. By comparing the two types of multilayers annealed at different temperatures, we shall be able to determine the main mechanisms behind the pinning strength degradation.
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A. N. Dobrynin; BENCOK Peter; HASSAN Sameh and VOROBIEV Alexei. (2019). Effects of interdiffusion and antiferromagnetic grain alignment on the pinning strength in IrMn /(Co, CoFe) bilayers and multilayers. Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) doi:10.5291/ILL-DATA.5-54-285
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