Influence of domain wall interactions on nanosecond switching in magnetic tunnel junctions

Abstract

We have obtained microscopic evidence of the influence of domain wall stray fields on the nanosecond magnetization switching in magnetic trilayer systems. The nucleation barrier initiating the magnetic switching of the soft magnetic Fe20Ni80 layer in magnetic tunnel junction-like FeNi/Al2O3/Co trilayers is considerably lowered by stray fields generated by domain walls present in the hard magnetic Co layer. This internal bias field can significantly increase the local switching speed of the soft layer. The effect is visualized using nanosecond time- and layer-resolved magnetic domain imaging and confirmed by micromagnetic simulations.

arXiv comment5 Pages, 3 Figures. Submitted to Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (1)

• Interplay between magnetic anisotropy and interlayer coupling in nanosecond magnetization reversal of spin-valve trilayers

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Magnetism in reduced dimensions
• Dynamics of magnetic domain wall motion after nucleation: Dependence on the wall energy
• Layer-resolved imaging of domain wall interactions in magnetic tunnel junction-like trilayers
• Influence of topography and Co domain walls on the magnetization reversal of the FeNi layer in FeNi/Al$\_2$O$\_3$/Co magnetic tunnel junctions