Second harmonic generation magneto-optic Kerr effect (SHMOKE) experiments, sensitive to buried interfaces, were performed on a polycrystalline NiFe/FeMn bilayer in which areas with different exchange bias fields were prepared using 5 KeV He ion irradiation. Both reversible and irreversible uncompensated spins are found in the antiferromagnetic layer close to the interface with the ferromagnetic layer. The SHMOKE hysteresis loop shows the same exchange bias field as obtained from standard magnetometry. We demonstrate that the exchange bias effect is controlled by pinned uncompensated spins in the antiferromagnetic layer.PACS numbers: 33.55. Fi, 75.30.Gw The magnetic exchange interaction between an antiferromagnetic (AF) and an adjacent ferromagnetic (F) layer may lead to the exchange bias effect discovered in 1956 [1,2]. Among other various intriguing features, this effect leads to a shift of the F hysteresis loop along the field axis by the so-called exchange bias field H eb . For recent reviews see Refs. [3,4,5]. Proposed models to account for the exchange bias involve (i) domain walls or partial domain walls in the AF layer which are either parallel [5,6] or perpendicular [7] to the interface, and/or (ii) uncompensated AF layer magnetic moments at the interface [7,8,9] and/or in the bulk [9,10]. In most exchange bias models, the interfacial uncompensated spins are linked to roughness, structural defects, or disoriented grains. Although uncompensated spins have been already evidenced [11], their behavior during the F layer magnetic reversal has not been reported so far and, experimentally, the relationship between uncompensated spins and exchange bias is still unclear. In the special case where artificial random defects can be introduced in the AF layer (such as in a diluted antiferromagnet), the so-called "domain state model" [9,10] showed that the exchange bias effect stems from the volume AF spin arrangement triggered by non magnetic defects. In this model, AF interfacial reversible and irreversible uncompensated spins (creating M F/AF rev and M AF irr respectively) are distinguished. Some of the interfacial AF uncompensated spins reverse under the action of an external magnetic field and the additional effective interface exchange field originating from the magnetized F layer, whereas the rest of the AF uncompensated spins remain frozen in the same range of applied fields. The reversible uncompensated spins hysteresis loop is found to be shifted along the field axis by H eb and along the magnetization axis by an amount directly proportional to M AF irr , which scales with H eb [10]. Using superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry, this vertical shift of the hysteresis loop of F/AF bilayers has already been measured and related to the exchange bias field sign [12], although its origin was not determined.Here we study the second-harmonic magneto-optic Kerr effect (SHMOKE) in an exchange-bias system. A second-harmonic signal in centrosymmetric materials is selectively generated at their inter...