  The influence of a patterned substrate on obliquely deposited, exchange
biased Co/CoO films was studied. It was found that substrates decorated with
nanoparticle patterns provide the option to manipulate the orientation of the
magnetic easy axis in obliquely deposited thin films. The complementary methods
of SQUID magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectometry were used to
disentangle the different contributions to the magnetic hysteresis of such
complex magnetic systems.
