Michigan Technological University
Department of Physics

is pleased to announce a colloquium

with

Shan-Ho Tsai

Magnetic Ordering in Ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic Bilayers

Ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic (F/AF) bilayers exhibit many remarkable properties, which include a unidirectional shift in the hysteresis loop (exchange bias) and a significant increase of the coercivity. Although these materials are already being used in technological applications, such as magnetic reading heads and sensors, the physical mechanisms responsible for their properties are not well understood yet. In this talk I will give an overview of the most salient properties of these bilayers and describe some classical spin models that we have studied using numerical simulations. Despite their simplicity, these models are capable of reproducing some experimental results and they provide important insight into the effect of the F/AF interfacial coupling and roughness on the magnetic ordering in these bilayers.

Thursday, March 27, 2003

4:00 p.m., Fisher 139

Refreshments will be served

MTU | Physics | Colloquium