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Gao Y, You B, Ruan XZ, Liu MY, Yang HL, Zhan QF, Li Z, Lei N, Zhao WS, Pan DF, Wan JG, Wu J, Tu HQ, Wang J, Zhang W, Xu YB, Du J. Depinning of domain walls in permalloy nanowires with asymmetric notches. Sci Rep 2016; 6:32617. [PMID: 27600627 PMCID: PMC5013472 DOI: 10.1038/srep32617] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2016] [Accepted: 08/10/2016] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Effective control of the domain wall (DW) motion along the magnetic nanowires is of great importance for fundamental research and potential application in spintronic devices. In this work, a series of permalloy nanowires with an asymmetric notch in the middle were fabricated with only varying the width (d) of the right arm from 200 nm to 1000 nm. The detailed pinning and depinning processes of DWs in these nanowires have been studied by using focused magneto-optic Kerr effect (FMOKE) magnetometer, magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and micromagnetic simulation. The experimental results unambiguously exhibit the presence of a DW pinned at the notch in a typical sample with d equal to 500 nm. At a certain range of 200 nm < d < 500 nm, both the experimental and simulated results show that the DW can maintain or change its chirality randomly during passing through the notch, resulting in two DW depinning fields. Those two depinning fields have opposite d dependences, which may be originated from different potential well/barrier generated by the asymmetric notch with varying d.
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Affiliation(s)
- Y Gao
- National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China
| | - B You
- National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China.,Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China
| | - X Z Ruan
- School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210046, P. R. China
| | - M Y Liu
- School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210046, P. R. China
| | - H L Yang
- Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices &Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, P. R. China
| | - Q F Zhan
- Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices &Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, P. R. China
| | - Z Li
- Fert Beijing Institute, Beihang University, Beijing, P. R. China.,School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - N Lei
- Fert Beijing Institute, Beihang University, Beijing, P. R. China.,School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - W S Zhao
- Fert Beijing Institute, Beihang University, Beijing, P. R. China.,School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - D F Pan
- National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China
| | - J G Wan
- National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China
| | - J Wu
- Department of Physics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom
| | - H Q Tu
- National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China
| | - J Wang
- National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China
| | - W Zhang
- National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China
| | - Y B Xu
- School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210046, P. R. China
| | - J Du
- National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China.,Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093, P. R. China
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