Variation of blocking temperatures for exchange biased CoO/Co/Ge(100) films

Abstract

Variations of the blocking temperature and related structures for CoO/Co/Ge(100) films are investigated by employing reflection high energy electron diffraction, Auger electron spectroscopy, and surface magneto-optic Kerr effect measurements. By increasing the CoO thickness, the blocking temperature is smaller than the Neel temperature of CoO. The monotonous increase of the blocking temperature is mainly attributed to the increasing thermal stability of the antiferromagnetic grains by way of increasing the antiferromagnetic thickness. The deviation of the blocking temperature from the linear relation and the full widths at half maximum of the diffraction spots show a similar trend. The minimums appear around 25 monolayer of CoO and are related to the formation of larger grains.