Beyond the quasi-particle: Stochastic domain wall dynamics in soft ferromagnetic nanowires

Abstract

We study the physical origins of stochastic domain wall pinning in soft ferromagnetic nanowires using focused magneto-optic Kerr effect measurements and dynamic micromagnetic simulations. Our results illustrate the ubiquitous nature of these effects in Ni80Fe20 nanowires, and show that they are not only a result of the magnetisation history of the system (i.e. the magnetisation structure of the injected domain walls), and the onset of non-linear propagation dynamics above the Walker breakdown field, but also a complex interplay between the two. We show that this means that, while micromagnetics can be used to make qualitative predictions of the behaviour of domain walls at defect sites, making quantitative predictions is much more challenging. Together, our results reinforce the view that even in these simple pseudo-one dimensional nanomagnets, domain walls must be considered as complex, dynamically evolving objects rather than simple quasi-particles.