Dynamics of Domain Wall Motion in Wires with Perpendicular Anisotropy

Abstract

Recently, much attention has been focused on new concepts of highly integrated spintronics devices based on magnetic domain walls driven by a spin-polarized current. However, several fundamental questions must be answered before the technology can be considered as feasible. This review covers the current understanding of DW propagation along sub-micronic size wires with ultra-thin films having perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. These films exhibit very narrow domain walls that interact strongly with pinning defects, making them model systems to study the dynamics of a 1D interface in a 2D weakly disorder medium. Three important issues are addressed: the peculiarities of domain wall motion driven by magnetic fields in nanoscale devices, the manipulation of the pinning potential for the control of efficient field induced domain wall motion, and the physics of current-driven domain wall motion.