Coupling and induced depinning of magnetic domain walls in adjacent spin valve nanotracks

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that magnetostatic interactions in adjacent spin-valve nanotracks can cause mutual pinning and induce depinning of magnetic domain walls, impacting the design of high-density magnetic devices.

Contribution

It reveals that a traveling domain wall can induce depinning in neighboring tracks, a novel insight into inter-DW interactions in spin-valve nanotracks.

Findings

Magnetostatic interaction causes mutual pinning of DWs.

A traveling DW can induce depinning of DWs in nearby tracks.

Implications for high-density magnetic device design.

Abstract

The magnetostatic interaction between magnetic domain walls (DWs) in adjacent nanotracks has been shown to produce strong inter-DW coupling and mutual pinning. In this paper, we have used electrical measurements of adjacent spin-valve nanotracks to follow the positions of interacting DWs. We show that the magnetostatic interaction between DWs causes not only mutual pinning, as observed till now, but that a travelling DW can also induce the depinning of DWs in near-by tracks. These effects may have great implications for some proposed high density magnetic devices (e.g. racetrack memory, DW logic circuits, or DW-based MRAM).