Sudden Magnetization Drops in S/F bilayered Structures

Abstract

We report in plane magnetization measurements on Nb/Co bilayers using a thin superconductor Nb$\sim 25$ nm and a thick ferromagnet Co$\sim 40-55$ nm where Bloch Domain Walls (BDW) are energetically favorable. Here sharp drops in the magnetization are explained as direct consequence of BDW stray fields that induce vortices in the out of plane direction. These are generated at small fields around the coercive field of the ferromagnet and removed at large fields of the order of $H_{c2}$. These two well distinctive magnetic states of the superconductor, with or without out of plane vortices, is the same mechanism used to explain the drops in critical currents reported in [E. J. Pati$\tilde{n}$o et. al., The European Physical Journal B 68, 73 (2009)]

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Evidence for Triplet Superconductivity in a Superconductor-Ferromagnet Spin Valve
• Inverse proximity effect in superconductor-ferromagnet bilayer structures
• Guiding superconducting vortices by magnetic domain walls
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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Domain wall induced modulation of low field H-T phase diagram in patterned superconductor-ferromagnet stripes