Effect of magnetostriction on the low- and high-field magnetization reversal of rapidly solidified amorphous nanowires

Abstract

Rapidly solidified amorphous glass-coated nanowires with metallic nucleus diameters ranging between 90 and 900 nm are magnetically bistable, i.e. they exhibit rectangular low-field (LF) hysteresis loops, which have been observed in both positive and nearly zero magnetostrictive samples [1]. Rectangular LF loops are the consequence of a single-step magnetization reversal process which takes place through the de-pinning and subsequent displacement of a single domain wall along the entire wire length, when the applied field is larger than a certain threshold value called switching field. The magnetization reversal in rapidly solidified non-magnetostrictive amorphous nanowires has been recently investigated by means of inductive hysteresis loop measurements for the LF loops and by micromagnetic simulations for the high-field (HF) loops [2]. It has been shown that shape anisotropy plays a crucial role in the magnetization reversal of such amorphous nanow-ires, in which the magnetoelastic contribution is negligible.