Magnetic properties of exchange biased and of unbiased oxide/permalloy thin layers: a ferromagnetic resonance and Brillouin scattering study.

Microstrip ferromagnetic resonance and Brillouin scattering are used to provide a comparative determination of the magnetic parameters of thin permalloy layers interfaced with a non-magnetic (Al(2)O(3)) or with an antiferromagnetic oxide (NiO). It results from our microstructural study that no preferential texture is favoured in the observed polycrystalline sublayers. It is shown that the perpendicular anisotropy can be monitored using an interfacial surface energy term which is practically independent of the nature of the interface. In the interval of thicknesses investigated (5-25 nm) the saturation magnetization does not significantly differ from the reported one in bulk permalloy. In-plane uniaxial anisotropy and exchange bias anisotropy are also derived from the study of the dynamic magnetic excitations and compared with our independent evaluations using conventional magnetometry.