Effect of thermal cycle on the interfacial antiferromagnetic spin configuration and exchange bias in Ni-Mn-Sb alloy

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Effect of thermal cycle on the interfacial antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin configuration and exchange bias in Ni50Mn36Sb14 alloy has been investigated. The results indicate thermal cycle can induce further martensitic transition from part of arrested FM phase to AFM phase, leading to the reconstruction of interfacial antiferromagnetic spin configuration. The shape of hysteresis loops at 5 K after cooling back can be tuned from a single-shifted loop to a nearly symmetric double-shifted loop gradually accompanied with exchange bias field increasing to peak value and then decreasing. The evolutions can be illustrated intuitively by a simple AFM bidomain model.