Enhancement of Exchange Bias in NiFe/IrM, IrMn/NiFe and NiFe/IrMn/NiFe Structures with Different Thickness of Antiferromagnetic Layer

The Influence of the ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) layers position and of the thickness of antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer on magnetic properties of FM/AFM bilayer structures was studied. Angular dependences of the coercive force and exchange bias field were analyzed for NiFe/IrMn bilayer structures with different thickness of AFM layer. In some samples we observed the maximum values of the exchange bias field in the directions different from the magnetic easy axis.