Configurational anisotropy and control of magnetic vortex chirality in arrays of circular Ni80 Fe20 nanoscale dots

Abstract

We present the experimental investigation and numerical analysis of the magnetostatic energy of ferromagnetic circular dots arranged in three different lattice geometries. We show that by varying the lattice arrangement, configurational anisotropy, which is significantly affected by the direction of the external magnetic field, can be induced. Depending on the coupling mechanism (ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic) between the neighboring dots in the lattice, different combinations of chiralities in the vortex state can be obtained. © 2009 The American Physical Society.