Exchange biasing in ferromagnetic amorphous wires: A controllable micromagnetic configuration

Nonmagnetostrictive Co-rich amorphous wires, 130 mm in diameter, were stress annealed to induce a transverse anisotropy. The resultant structure consists of a circular-magnetization single domain except in a thin core, 2 mm in diameter, where magnetization is axially oriented. The wall interconnecting the outer shell with the core magnetization induces a local helical anisotropy during the annealing. As a consequence, a strong link between the magnetization directions in both regions appears. It is shown that direct current axial fields produce remarkable shifts of the circular hysteresis loops. © 1999 American Institute of Physics. @S0003-6951~99!01109-2#