GMR effect in a single trilayer wire with submicron width

Abstract

Magnetization reversal phenomena in a submicron magnetic wire with a trilayer structure were investigated by measuring the electric resistance in external magnetic fields. The critical field for domain wall nucleation was observed to be slightly different for each field sweep. The magnetoresistance measurements were repeated 200 times with a sweep rate of 6 Oe/s. The obtained distribution of critical fields had two peaks and both moved to higher fields as temperature was decreased. This result suggests that domain wall nucleation occurs through a thermally activated process down to 5 K.