Direct observation of domain wall surface tension by deflating or inflating a magnetic bubble

Abstract

The surface energy of a magnetic Domain Wall (DW) strongly affects its static and dynamic behaviours. However, this effect was seldom directly observed and many related phenomena have not been well understood. Moreover, a reliable method to quantify the DW surface energy is still missing. Here, we report a series of experiments in which the DW surface energy becomes a dominant parameter. We observed that a semicircular magnetic domain bubble could spontaneously collapse under the Laplace pressure induced by DW surface energy. We further demonstrated that the surface energy could lead to a geometrically induced pinning when the DW propagates in a Hall cross or from a nanowire into a nucleation pad. Based on these observations, we developed two methods to quantify the DW surface energy, which could be very helpful to estimate intrinsic parameters such as Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interactions (DMI) or exchange stiffness in magnetic ultra-thin films.

14 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Advances in the Physics of Magnetic Skyrmions and Perspective for Technology
• Interface-Induced Phenomena in Magnetism
• Creep and flow regimes of magnetic domain wall motion in ultrathin Pt/Co/Pt films with perpendicular anisotropy
• The nature of domain walls in ultrathin ferromagnets revealed by scanning nanomagnetometry
• Domain structure in CoFeB thin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy
• Asymmetric hysteresis for probing Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Cited by in corpus (10)

• High-speed domain wall racetracks in a magnetic insulator
• Skyrmions in magnetic tunnel junctions
• Field-free spin-orbit torque switching from geometrical domain wall pinning
• Domain Wall Motion Driven by Laplace Pressure in CoFeB-MgO Nanodots with Perpendicular Anisotropy
• Enhanced Interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction in annealed Pt/Co/MgO structures
• Controlling Domain-Wall Nucleation in Ta/CoFeB/MgO Nanomagnets via Local Ga+ Ion Irradiation
• Domain-wall motion induced by spin transfer torque delivered by helicity-dependent femtosecond laser
• Low spin-polarization in the heavy metal\ferromagnet structures detected through the domain wall motion by synchronized magnetic field and current
• Magnetoresistive sensors based on the elasticity of domain walls
• Degradation of domains with sequential field application