Strength and length-scale of the interaction between domain walls and pinning disorder in thin ferromagnetic films

TL;DR

This study investigates how the structure and chirality of domain walls in thin ferromagnetic films influence their interaction with pinning disorder, revealing that domain wall width modulates pinning characteristics across different materials.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the relationship between domain wall structure, chirality, and pinning interactions in thin ferromagnetic films, highlighting the role of domain wall width.

Findings

Domain wall structure affects pinning length-scale.

Chirality does not significantly alter pinning interactions.

Pinning length-scale correlates with domain wall width.

Abstract

We explore the magnetic-field-driven motion of domain walls with different chiralities in thin ferromagnetic films made of Pt/Co/Pt, Au/Co/Pt, and Pt/Co/Au. From the analysis of domain wall dynamics, we extract parameters characterizing the interaction between domain walls and weak pinning disorder of the films. The variations of domain wall structure, controlled by an in-plane field, are found to modify the characteristic length-scale of pinning in strong correlation with the domain wall width, whatever its chirality and the interaction strength between domain walls and pinning defects. These findings should be also relevant for a wide variety of elastic interfaces moving in weak pinning disordered media.