Angular dependence and interfacial roughness in exchange-biased ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic bilayers

A theoretical study of the angular dependence of exchange bias in coupled ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic bilayers is presented. The variation of the bias field with applied field angle is shown to be strongly affected by the canting of the interfacial spins, particularly with the presence of defects. Discontinuities in the angular dependence of the bias field are found to depend on the sense of rotation of the ferromagnetic layer upon reversal.