Micromagnetics of ultrathin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

Authors

• Ralph Skomski, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• H.-P. Oepen, Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik
• J. Kirschner, Max-Planck-Institut für MikrostrukturphysikFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

August 1998

Comments

Published by Am Physical Soc. Phys. Rev. B 58 (1998) 3223-3227. Copyright 1998. Permission to use. http://www.aps.org/.

Abstract

Magnetization processes in ultra-thin transition-metal films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy are investigated. By model calculations it is shown that nucleation in ideal films is incoherent and therefore bulk-like, whereas the truly ultra-thin limit of coherent nucleation is restricted to film patches of small cross-section areas. In ideal mono-layers, the nonzero film thickness leads to bulk-like nucleation if the lateral dimensions of the film exceed about 1 mm. This means that monolayer patches having sub-micrometer diameters cannot be regarded as ultra-thin in a micro-magnetic sense. On the other hand, the critical single-domain diameter of ultra-thin films is larger by one order of magnitude than expected from bulk-type thin-film calculations.