Collective length effect on the magnetostatic properties of arrays of glass-coated amorphous alloy microwires

Abstract

The effects of the number of microwires N in an array and of their lengths on the remagnetization process and the magnetostatic properties for glass-coated Fe-rich and Co-rich amorphous alloy microwires have been investigated. The remagnetization profiles were measured by vibrating sample magnetometry. The coercive field and the saturation field for arrays of both Fe-rich and Co-rich microwires increased while the remanence to saturation ratio decreased as N increased from 1 to 150. The coercive field and remanence to saturation ratio decreased when the length of the microwires was reduced from 10 to 1 mm.The effect of the collective length of an array of microwires on their magnetostatic properties is analyzed using a model considering the balance between the demagnetizing energy, the magnetoelastic energy and the dipolar–dipolar interaction energy. Also, the critical lengths of the glass-coated Fe-rich and Co-rich microwires are estimated from the abrupt change in the magnetostatic properties.