Electric control of exchange bias in Co/FeOx bilayer by resistive switching

Two types of electric control of exchange bias (EB) by resistive switching (RS), i.e. conductive-filament-RS (type I) and interface-barrier-RS (type II) were observed in the Si/SiO2Ti/Pt/FeOx/Co/ITO multilayer devices, which were fabricated by magnetron sputtering. It is difficult for the type I device to control EB, which may be due to that the quantity of conductive filaments is not enough to modify the antiferromagnetic structure of FeOx near the Co/FeOx interface. However, the electric control of EB can be accomplished in the type II device. Compared with low-resistance-state (LRS), the exchange bias field (HE) increases a little but the coercivity (HC) increases significantly at high-resistance-state (HRS). We consider that the migration of the oxygen vacancies under different voltages is able to mediate the interfacial barrier height, leading to the bipolar RS effect and the change of EB as well. This provides a way for designing new types of spintronic devices based on electric control.