Nucleation, imaging and motion of magnetic domain walls in cylindrical nanowires

TL;DR

This paper presents methods for reliably creating and observing magnetic domain walls in cylindrical permalloy nanowires, analyzing their contrast in microscopy and demonstrating their controlled motion under weak magnetic fields.

Contribution

It introduces procedures for robust domain wall nucleation, discusses microscopy contrast features, and demonstrates domain wall motion in cylindrical nanowires.

Findings

Successful domain wall nucleation procedures

Distinct microscopy contrast features identified

Domain walls moved under low magnetic fields (0.1--10 mT)

Abstract

We report several procedures for the robust nucleation of magnetic domain walls in cylindrical permalloy nanowires. Specific features of the magnetic force microscopy contrast of such soft wires are discussed, with a view to avoid the misinterpretation of the magnetization states. The domain walls could be moved under quasistatic magnetic fields in the range 0.1--10 mT.