Magnetization reversal phenomena in thin films presenting stripe domains

Abstract

We present a study of the properties related to the magnetization reversal process in two thin-film samples with magnetic stripe domains: Fe0.82Ga0.18 (Fe–Ga) and Ni0.81Fe0.19 (permalloy). In Fe–Ga thin films, we focus on 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 to study the behavior of the transverse magnetization component (perpendicular to the applied field) during the magnetization reversal process. We 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 to highlight the competition between the intrinsic and rotatable anisotropies in thin films that present stripe domains.