Abstract
NiMn is one of most promising candidates for the antiferromagnetic pinning layer of spin valves due to its superior thermal stability. Almost all of previous works were on polycrystalline NiMn, especially on (111)-textured NiMn films. The antiferromagnetic NiMn phase is of a CuAu-I (L10) ordered tetragonal crystal structure, which consists of alternating planes of Ni and Mn. In bulk NiMn, its magnetic spins were aligned on (001) planes; therefore, it would be an interest to study the exchange anisotropy on the (001) NiMn/NiFe system. E-beam evaporated Cu films were found to epitaxially grow on Si(001), and were used as seed layers for depositing epitaxial metal films. In this work, epitaxial (001)Ni80Fe20 and (001)NiMn were prepared on the Si/Cu(001) structural templates by e-beam evaporation, and the exchange anisotropy was studied.