Room temperature domain wall pinning in bent ferromagnetic nanowires

We study the formation and control of metastable states of pairs of domain walls in cylindrical nanowires of small diameter where the transverse walls are the lower energy state. We show that these pairs form bound states under certain conditions, with a lifetime as long as 200ns, and are stabilized by the influence of a spin polarized current. Their stability is analyzed with a model based on the magnetostatic interaction and by 3D micromagnetic simulations. The apparition o...

We investigate the effect of curvature on the energy and stability of domain wall configurations in curved cylindrical nanotubes and nanowires. We use micromagnetic simulations to calculate the phase diagram for the transverse wall (TW) and vortex wall (VW) states in tubes, finding the ground state configuration and the metastability region where both types of walls can exist. The introduction of curvature shifts the range for which the TW is the ground state domain wall to h...

The future developments of three-dimensional magnetic nanotechnology require the control of domain wall dynamics by means of current pulses. While this has been extensively studied in planar magnetic strips (planar nanowires), few reports exist in cylindrical geometry, where Bloch point domain walls are expected to have intriguing properties. Here we report this investigation in cylindrical magnetic Ni nanowires with geometrical notches. Experimental work based on synchrotron...

The current mediated domain-wall dynamics in a thin ferromagnetic wire is investigated. We derive the effective equations of motion of the domain wall. They are used to study the possibility to optimize the power supplied by electric current for the motion of domain walls in a nanowire. We show that a certain resonant time-dependent current moving a domain wall can significantly reduce the Joule heating in the wire, and thus it can lead to a novel proposal for the most energy...

Difference in density of states for the spin's majority and minority bands in a ferromagnet changes the electrostatic potential along the domains, introducing the discontinuities of the potential at domain boundaries. The value of discontinuity oscillates with number of domains. Discontinuity depends on the positions of domain walls, their motion or collapse of domain walls in applied magnetic field. Large values of magnetoresistance are explained in terms of spin-accumulatio...

The magnetization reversal of three-segment cylindrical nanoelements comprising of alternating nanowire and nanotube sections is investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Such nanoelements may feature a three-state behaviour with an intermediate plateau in the hysteresis curve due to a metastable pinning of the domain walls at the wire-tube interfaces. It turns out that vortex as well as transverse domain walls contribute to the magnetization reversal. By varying the ...

The domain wall motion in a magnetic nanowire is examined theoretically in the regime where the domain wall driving force is weak and its competition against disorders is assisted by thermal agitations. Two types of driving forces are considered; magnetic field and current. While the field induces the domain wall motion through the Zeeman energy, the current induces the domain wall motion by generating the spin transfer torque, of which effects in this regime remain controver...

The potential experienced by transverse domain walls (TDWs) in the vicinity of asymmetric constrictions or protrusions in thin Permalloy nanowires is probed using spatially resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements. Both types of traps are found to act as pinning centers for DWs. The strength of pinning is found to depend on the trap type as well as on the chirality of the incoming DW; both types of traps are seen to act either as potential wells or potential barriers...

We present a circuit model to describe the electron transport through a domain wall in a ferromagnetic nanowire. The domain wall is treated as a coherent 4-terminal device with incoming and outgoing channels of spin up and down and the spin-dependent scattering in the vicinity of the wall is modelled using classical resistances. We derive the conductance of the circuit in terms of general conductance parameters for a domain wall. We then calculate these conductance parameters...

It is shown that a local bend of a nanowire is a source of pinning potential for a transversal head-to-head (tail-to-tail) domain wall. Eigenfrequency of the domain wall free oscillations at the pinning potential and the effective friction are determined as functions of the curvature and domain wall width. The pinning potential originates from the effective curvature induced Dzyaloshinsky-like term in the exchange energy. The theoretical results are verified by means of micro...