Domain wall energy landscapes in amorphous magnetic films with asymmetric arrays of holes

A. ALIJA, A. PÉREZ-JUNQUERA, G. RODRÍGUEZ-RODRÍGUEZ, M. VÉLEZ, V. I. MARCONI, A. B. KOLTON, J. V. ANGUITA, J. M. ALAMEDA, J. M. R. PARRONDO AND J. I. MARTÍN

JOURNAL OF PHYSICS - D (APPLIED PHYSICS)

IOP Publishing

Año: 2009 vol. 42 p. 45001 - 45007

0022-3727

Arrays of asymmetric holes have been defined in amorphous Co–Si films by e-beam lithography in order to study domain wall motion across the array subject to the asymmetric pinning potential created by the holes. Experimental results on Kerr effect magnetooptical measurements and hysteresis loops are compared with micromagnetic simulations in films with arrays of triangular holes. These show that the potential asymmetry favours forward wall propagation for flat walls but, if the wall contains a kink, net backward wall propagation is preferred at low fields, in agreement with minor loop experiments. The difference between the fields needed for forward and backward flat wall propagation increases as the size of the triangular holes is reduced, becoming maximum for 1 µm triangles, which is the characteristic length scale set by domain wall width.