Ferromagnetic excess moments and apparent exchange bias in FeF2 single crystals

D C Joshi; P Nordblad; R Mathieu

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-55142-6

Ferromagnetic excess moments and apparent exchange bias in FeF₂ single crystals

Sci Rep. 2019 Dec 11;9(1):18884. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-55142-6.

Authors

D C Joshi¹, P Nordblad², R Mathieu²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, Box 534, SE-751 21, Uppsala, Sweden. [email protected].
² Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, Box 534, SE-751 21, Uppsala, Sweden.

Abstract

The anisotropic antiferromagnet FeF₂ has been extensively used as an antiferromagnetic layer to induce exchange bias effects in ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic bilayers and heterostructures. In this work, an apparent exchange bias occurring in the low temperature hysteresis loops of FeF₂ single crystals is investigated. A detailed investigation of the hysteresis and remnant magnetization indicates that the observation of an apparent exchange bias in FeF₂ stems from an intrinsic excess moment associated with a distortion of the antiferromagnetic structure of piezomagnetic origin.