The authors present a study of properties related to the magnetization reversal process in two thin film samples presenting magnetic stripe domains: Fe0.82Ga0.18 (Fe-Ga) and Ni0.81Fe0.19 (permalloy). In Fe-Ga thin films, they focus on the magnetization reversal driven by thermal activation, by considering the magnetic viscosity behavior. The results suggest that the reversal process occurs gradually, where the magnetization switches direction via ~10 nm-long jumps of the magnetic domain walls. On the other hand, vectorial hysteresis loops were performed in permalloy thin films with the aim of studying the behavior of the transverse magnetization component (perpendicular to the applied field) during the magnetization reversal process. They show that the measurement of the transversal magnetization component shows a much higher sensitivity for the determination of the in-plane magnetic anisotropy than the usual hysteresis loops where the magnetization is parallel to the applied field. Moreover, this allows them to highlight the competition between the intrinsic and rotatable anisotropies in thin film-present stripe domains.
P. López Duque, D. Goijman, A. Sarmiento, G. Ramírez, L. Avilés-Félix, J. Gómez, M. Eddrief, A. Butera, P. Vavassori, and J. Milano, and D. Niebieskikwiat, Magnetization Reversal Phenomena in Thin Films Presenting Stripe Domains.
Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4548057 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4548057