Control of domain structure and magnetization reversal in thick Co/Pt multilayers

Abstract

We present a study of the magnetic properties of [Co(3.0 nm)/Pt(0.6 nm)]N multilayers as a function of Co/Pt bilayer repetitions N. Magnetometry investigation reveals that samples with N ≥ 15 exhibit two characteristic magnetization reversal mechanisms, giving rise to two different

Magnetic Domains without Domain Walls: A Unique Effect of He+ Ion Bombardment in Ferrimagnetic Tb/Co Films

“…In these materials, magnetic domains are uniformly magnetized regions, in which the effective magnetization points in a definite direction. Naturally occurring domain patterns are formed by free energy minimization, usually as a compromise between exchange, anisotropy and stray field energy terms [5,7,12,13]. The domains are separated by domain walls (DWs) which are the transition regions where the magnetic moment reorients from the direction within the first domain to the direction within the second.…”

Stripe domains reorientation in ferromagnetic films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

“…Weak stripe domains were first predicted theoretically [32,33] and later discovered experimentally in NiFe films [19,34]. In the following years, the phenomenon has been found and deepened in different kinds of thin films with moderate PMA, such as FeGa [35][36][37][38], FeN [31,39,40], FeSiB [41,42], CoFeB [43], FeTaN [44], GdFe [45], NdCo [46], FeCoZr [23], La x Sr 1−x MnO 3 [47] and multilayers with moderate perpendicular anisotropy [48][49][50]. Very recently, it has been shown [51] that the formation of stripe domains can be induced in a Py film, even far below the critical thickness, by coupling the Py film to a NdCo one, characterized by a moderate PMA.…”

“…The subject is currently attracting wide interest, thanks to the central role played today by magnetic thin films with PMA in many applications, from memories to logic devices and sensors [52]. Current active research on PMA films and multilayers is focused onto the definition of magnetic phase diagrams into different systems where magnetic stripe and skyrmion or bubble phases compete [30,47,50,[53][54][55][56][57]. Nanoscale magnetic textures are today the focus of a wide area of research, thanks to the possibility of generating and controlling the propagation of domains, bubbles, skyrmions and other kinds of spin textures for realizing, e.g.…”

Linear chains of nanomagnets: engineering the effective magnetic anisotropy

“…The appearance of a tiny hysteresis effect near the remanence may exist due to slight sample imperfection. [37,38] The hysteresis loops for d = 30 nm and 70 nm are shown in Figure S1 of the supporting information. This can be observed from Table 1 that the values of Hc and MR/Ms for 30 and 70 nm thick nanostructures are comparable to those values for 20 and 100 nm thick type-I LC respectively which infers the similarity in reversal mechanism.…”