The Magnetic Ground State of a Thin-Film Element

Wolfgang Rave, Steven Zielke, and Alex Hubert

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Submission date: 26. Oct. 1999
Pages: 10
published in: IEEE transactions on magnetics, 36 (2000) 6, p. 3886- 3899 
Bibtex
with the following different title: Magnetic ground state of a thin-film element

Abstract:
By means of 3D numerical calculations we studied possible micromagnetic configurations in a rectangular Permalloy-like thin-film element. The parameters were chosen to be compatible with the so-called micromagnetic standard problem #1.

It is demonstrated that for these parameters a diamond domain pattern is the lowest energy state which replaces cross-tie patterns favourable in larger elements. Only at smaller sizes the originally envisaged Landau pattern forms the ground state.

The transition to high-remanence structures (or what would be comparable to a 'single-domain' state) is found for lateral sizes which are an order of magnitude smaller than the benchmark parameters.

The transitions among the different domain patterns become plausible by considering the energy of symmetric Néel walls in extended thin films. The features of the high-remanence structures can be derived from the principle of uniform charge distribution.