Influence of magnetostatic interaction on the magnetization reversal of patterned Co/Pd multilayers nanorings

Abstract

We present a systematical investigation of magnetostatic interaction on magnetization reversal process for [Co(5Å)/Pd(30Å)]n multilayers nanoring arrays separated by various edge-to-edge interring spacing (s). We observed that the coercivity Hc and switching field distribution (SFD) are strongly dependent on both s and number of multilayer repeats n. For a fixed n, the absolute SFD and Hc both increase with increasing s. However, the normalized SFD (SFD/H-c) shows a non-monotonic variation, while a minimum value of the normalized SFD is observed at a critical s=500 nm. The findings are strongly related to the magnetostatic interaction on magnetization reversal in nanoring arrays, which are further revealed by micromagnetic simulations together with magnetic force microscopy. © 2013 IEEE.