No Arabic abstract
We present a characterization of the domain wall solutions arising as minimizers of an energy functional obtained in a suitable asymptotic regime of micromagnetics for infinitely long thin film ferromagnetic strips in which the magnetization is forced to lie in the film plane. For the considered energy, we provide existence, uniqueness, monotonicity, and symmetry of the magnetization profiles in the form of 180$^circ$ and 360$^circ$ walls. We also demonstrate how this energy arises as a $Gamma$-limit of the reduced two-dimensional thin film micromagnetic energy that captures the non-local effects associated with the stray field, and characterize its respective energy minimizers.
We present a quantitative investigation of magnetic domain wall pinning in thin magnets with perpendicular anisotropy. A self-consistent description exploiting the universal features of the depinning and thermally activated sub-threshold creep regimes observed in the field driven domain wall velocity, is used to determine the effective pinning parameters controlling the domain wall dynamics: the effective height of pinning barriers, the depinning threshold, and the velocity at depinning. Within this framework, the analysis of results published in the literature allows for a quantitative comparison of pinning properties for a set of magnetic materials in a wide temperature range. On the basis of scaling arguments, the microscopic parameters controlling the pinning: the correlation length of pinning, the collectively pinned domain wall length (Larkin length) and the strength of pinning disorder, are estimated from the effective pinning and the micromagnetic parameters. The analysis of thermal effects reveals a crossover between different pinning length scales and strengths at low reduced temperature.
We report a comparative study of magnetic field driven domain wall motion in thin films made of different magnetic materials for a wide range of field and temperature. The full thermally activated creep motion, observed below the depinning threshold, is shown to be described by a unique universal energy barrier function. Our findings should be relevant for other systems whose dynamics can be modeled by elastic interfaces moving on disordered energy landscapes.
The one-dimensional problem of a static head-to-head domain wall structure in a thin soft-magnetic nanowire with circular cross-section is treated within the framework of micromagnetic theory. A radius-dependent analytic form of the domain wall profile is derived by decomposing the magnetostatic energy into a monopolar and a dipolar term. We present a model in which the dipolar term of the magnetostatic energy resulting from the transverse magnetization in the center of the domain wall is calculated with Osborns formulas for homogeneously magnetized ellipsoids [Phys. Rev. 67, 351 (1945)]. The analytic results agree almost perfectly with simulation data as long as the wire diameter is sufficiently small to prevent inhomogeneities of the magnetization along the cross-section. Owing to the recently demonstrated negligible Doring mass of these walls, our results should also apply to the dynamic case, where domain walls are driven by spin-transfer toque effects and/or an axial magnetic field.
A magnetic helix arises in chiral magnets with a wavelength set by the spin-orbit coupling. We show that the helimagnetic order is a nanoscale analog to liquid crystals, exhibiting topological structures and domain walls that are distinctly different from classical magnets. Using magnetic force microscopy and micromagnetic simulations, we demonstrate that - similar to cholesteric liquid crystals - three fundamental types of domain walls are realized in the helimagnet FeGe. We reveal the micromagnetic wall structure and show that they can carry a finite skyrmion charge, permitting coupling to spin currents and contributions to a topological Hall effect. Our study establishes a new class of magnetic nano-objects with non-trivial topology, opening the door to innovative device concepts based on helimagnetic domain walls.
We demonstrate reproducible voltage induced non-volatile switching of the magnetization in an epitaxial thin Fe81Ga19 film. Switching is induced at room temperature and without the aid of an external magnetic field. This is achieved by the modification of the magnetic anisotropy by mechanical strain induced by a piezoelectric transducer attached to the layer. Epitaxial Fe81Ga19 is shown to possess the favourable combination of cubic magnetic anisotropy and large magnetostriction necessary to achieve this functionality with experimentally accessible levels of strain. The switching of the magnetization proceeds by the motion of magnetic domain walls, also controlled by the voltage induced strain.