Spin configurations in the absence of an
    external magnetic field in a magnetic
   bilayer with in-plane cubic or uniaxial
                   anisotropies

   Ming-hui Yu a,b * dygeng@imr.ac.cn and Zhi-dong Zhang a,b

  a Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 72
  Wenhua Road, Shenyang 110015, People's Republic of China
 b International Center for Materials Physics, Chinese Academy of
    Sciences, Shenyang 110015, People's Republic of China 

                Received 23 October 1998

Abstract

The spin configurations in the absence of an external magnetic
field have been systematically investigated for a magnetic bilayer
system consisting of two ferromagnetic layers separated by a
non-magnetic layer with interlayer exchange coupling. Based on a
phenomenological model, the conditions for the existence of
collinear and non-collinear spin structures were derived for three
kinds of magnetic bilayers with different combinations of in-plane
cubic and uniaxial anisotropies for the two ferromagnetic layers.
The phase diagrams of the spin configurations at zero field were
drawn, taking into account the lowest-order anisotropy parameters
of both the ferromagnetic layers. The values of the canting angle
have been derived analytically and then numerically plotted.

PACS: 75.60.d; 75.70.i; 75.25.+z

Keywords: Spin configurations; Ferromagnetic layers; Uniaxial
anisotropies; Coupling energy

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-24-2384353155857; fax:
+86-24-23891320