Temperature dependent exchange bias training effect in single-crystalline BiFeO3/Co bilayers

Abstract

Single-crystalline BiFeO<inf>3</inf> (BFO)/Co bilayers were prepared by combined pulsed laser deposition and magnetron sputtering on (001) SrTiO<inf>3</inf> substrates. Exchange bias (EB) and accompanying training effect have been studied as a function of temperature (T) between 5 K and 300 K. A non-monotonic exchange field variation with sharp increase below 100 K has been observed. In the meanwhile, strong training effect was recorded when T < 100 K and it weakens monotonically with increasing T up to 300 K. These temperature dependent EB and training effect may be caused by the uncompensated spins in both the interfacial spin-glass (SG) phase at low temperature and the antiferromagnetic BFO layer at higher temperature. The low temperature EB training results can be well fitted by a modified Binek's model considering asymmetric changes of the pinning SG spins at the descending and the ascending branches.