Abstract
We report the antiferromagnetic (AFM) thickness dependence study of zinc-blende CrTe/ZnTe/MnTe layered structure grown on GaAs (100) by low temperature molecular beam epitaxy. The coercivity
(
H
C
)
and exchange bias field
(
H
E
)
show a nonmonotonic dependence on the AFM thickness. Both
(
H
C
)
and
H
E
exhibit a maximum value at the AFM thickness of
∼
15
nm
. With decreasing AFM thickness, we found that the blocking temperature drops from 70 (Néel temperature of bulk MnTe) to 22 K, while the Curie temperature is found to increase from 100 to 190 K. Additionally, a vertical magnetization shift is observed in the
M
-
H
loop, which can be attributed to the presence of frozen ferromagnetic spins at the interface.