Influence of Ga+ ion irradiation on thermal relaxation of exchange bias field in exchange-coupled CoFe/IrMn bilayers

This paper reports that the CoFe/IrMn bilayers are deposited by magnetron sputtering on the surfaces of thermallyoxidized Si substrates.It investigates the thermal relaxations of both non-irradiated and Ga + ion irradiated CoFe/IrMn bilayers by means of holding the bilayers in a negative saturation field.The results show that exchange bias field decreases with the increase of holding time period for both non-irradiated and Ga + ion irradiated CoFe/IrMn bilayers.Exchange bias field is also found to be smaller upon irradiation at higher ion dose.This reduction of exchange bias field is attributed to the change of energy barrier induced by ion-radiation.     

Influence of Ga+ ion irradiation on the magnetisation reversal process and magnetoresistance in CoFe/Cu/CoFe/IrMn spin valves

Ga+ion irradiation is performed on the surfaces of IrMn-based spin valves and the effects of ion irradiation on the magnetisation reversal process and magnetoresistance(MR) are investigated.The results show that the exchange bias field and magnetoresistance ratio of the spin valve decrease with the increase of ion dose.The width of the forward step between the free layer and the pinned layer becomes gradually smaller with the increase of ion dose whilst the recoil step tends to be narrower with ion dose increasing up to 6×10 13 ions/cm 2 and the step disappears afterwards.Two peaks in the R-H curve are found to be asymmetric.     

Magnetostructural transformation and magnetocaloric effect in Mn_(48-x)V_xNi_(42)Sn_(10) ferromagnetic shape memory alloys

In this work, we tuned the magnetostructural transformation and the coupled magnetocaloric properties of Mn_(48-x)V_xNi_(42)Sn_(10)(x = 0, 1, 2, and 3) ferromagnetic shape memory alloys prepared by means of partial replacement of Mn by V. It is observed that the martensitic transformation temperatures decrease with the increase of V content. The shift of the transition temperatures to lower temperatures driven by the applied field, the metamagnetic behavior, and the thermal hysteresis indicates the first-order nature for the magnetostructural transformation. The entropy changes with a magnetic field variation of 0–5 T are 15.2, 18.8, and 24.3 J·kg~(-1)·K~(-1) for the x = 0, 1, and 2 samples, respectively. The tunable martensitic transformation temperature, enhanced field driving capacity, and large entropy change suggest that Mn_(48-x)V_xNi_(42)Sn_(10) alloys have a potential for applications in magnetic cooling refrigeration.