Domain wall conduit behavior in cobalt nanowires grown by focused electron beam induced deposition

Abstract

The domain wall nucleation and propagation fields in cobalt nanowires grown by focused electron beam induced deposition are measured using spatially resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect. The study was systematically done for wire widths from 600 to 150 nm, finding significant differences in the value of both fields for the wires, indicating high quality domain wall conduit behavior. The extreme simplicity and flexibility of this technique with respect to the multistep lithographic processes used nowadays opens a different route to create magnetic nanostructures with a good control of the domain wall motion. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.