Abstract: The structural and magnetic properties of NiFe/PtMn bilayers with Ta or NiFeCr as the seed and cap layers were investigated.It is found that the NiFe/PtMn bilayer with NiFeCr as seed and cap layers has higher exchange bias than that with Ta.After annealing,the reduction of the magnetization for the films with NiFeCr seed and cap layers is smaller than that with Ta as seed and cap layers.On the other hand,the grain size of the bilayers with NiFeCr seed layer is much larger than that of the films with Ta seed layer,which leads to a better thermal stability for the former.The results indicate that NiFeCr can be promising seed and cap layers in spin valves based on Mn-alloyed antiferromagnets.