  We investigated the magnetization reversal of arrays of exchange biased
NiO/Ni squares with superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry
and micromagnetic simulations. The edges of the squares were 0.5, 1.5, and 3.0
$\mu$m long. The NiO/Ni structures exhibit vortexlike hysteresis loops and
micromagnetic calculations show that this feature is due to several vortices
nucleating in the islands. Furthermore, for the arrays with squares of 1.5
$\mu$m edge length, the sign of the exchange bias field changes, as compared to
the same continuous NiO/Ni layer. We attribute the vortex nucleation and the
change of the exchange bias field to the interplay between shape and
unidirectional anisotropy.
