We have employed soft and hard x-ray resonant magnetic scattering and polarized neutron diffraction to study the magnetic interface and the bulk antiferromagnetic domain state of the archetypal epitaxial ${\text{Ni}}_{81}{\text{Fe}}_{19}\left(111\right)/\text{CoO}\left(111\right)$ exchange biased bilayer. The combination of these scattering methods provides unprecedented detailed insights into the still incomplete understanding of some key manifestations of the exchange bias effect. We show that the several orders of magnitude difference between the expected and measured value of exchange bias field is caused by an anisotropic in-plane orientation of antiferromagnetic domains. Irreversible changes in their configuration lead to a training effect. This is directly seen as a change in the magnetic half-order Bragg peaks after magnetization reversal. The antiferromagnetic domain size is extracted from the width of the $\left(\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{2}\right)$ antiferromagnetic peak by both neutron and x-ray scattering and is determined to be 30 nm in size. A reduced blocking temperature as compared to the measured antiferromagnetic ordering temperature clearly corresponds to the blocking of antiferromagnetic domains. Moreover, an excellent correlation between the size of the antiferromagnetic domains, exchange bias field, and frozen-in spin ratio is found, providing a comprehensive understanding of the origin of exchange bias in epitaxial systems.

• Received 3 August 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.79.184425