Magnetic properties of double exchange biased diluted magnetic alloy/ferromagnet/antiferromagnet trilayers

The magnetic properties of trilayers consisting of a diluted magnetic alloy, CuMn (Cu0.99Mn0.01), a soft ferromagnet, Py(?Ni0.8Fe0.2), and an antiferromagnet, ?-Fe2O3, were investigated. The samples, grown by UHV magnetron sputtering, were magnetically characterized in the temperature range T = 3-100 K. Typical exchange bias features, namely clear hysteresis cycle shifts and coercivity enhancements, were observed. Moreover the presence of an inverse bias, which had been already reported for spin glass-based structures, was also obtained in a well-defined range of temperatures and CuMn thicknesses. © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd.