Domain Wall Motion Driven by Laplace Pressure in CoFeB-MgO Nanodots with Perpendicular Anisotropy

TL;DR

This study investigates how domain wall motion driven by Laplace pressure influences magnetization reversal in CoFeB-MgO nanodots with perpendicular anisotropy, revealing size-dependent switching fields and implications for spintronic device scalability.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Laplace pressure affects domain wall depinning fields in nanodots, providing a new understanding of size-dependent switching behavior in magnetic nanostructures.

Findings

Switching field decreases with nanodot size, following a 1/w relation.

Domain wall nucleation at edges influences magnetization reversal.

Laplace pressure impacts depinning fields, affecting device scaling.

Abstract

We have studied the magnetization reversal of CoFeB-MgO nanodots with perpendicular anisotropy for size ranging from w=400 nm to 1 {\mu}m. Contrary to previous experiments, the switching field distribution is shifted toward lower magnetic fields as the size of the elements is reduced with a mean switching field varying as 1/w. We show that this mechanism can be explained by the nucleation of a pinned magnetic domain wall (DW) at the edges of the nanodots where damages are introduced by the patterning process. As the surface tension (Laplace pressure) applied on the DW increases when reducing the size of the nanodots, we demonstrate that the depinning field to reverse the entire elements varies as 1/w. These results suggest that the presence of DWs has to be considered in the switching process of nanoscale elements and open a path toward scalable spintronic devices.