Domain wall motion near the edges of terraces (e.g., grooves, pits, plateaus, etc.) is studied using analytical techniques based on the minimum energy principle and computer simulations based on the dynamic Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert equation. One-dimensional lattices of magnetic dipoles with variations either of the easy axis direction (corresponding to a tilt of the anisotropy axis at the edge) or of the nearest-neighbor exchange force (corresponding to a changing film thickness) are considered. We show that the coercivity caused by the terrace edge could be as large as several kilo Oe.
We measured the magnetic hysteresis loops for several obliquely deposited amorphous TbFeCo films. The experimental results show that the direction of the average magnetic anisotropy (i.e., the easy axis of magnetization) is no longer along the surface normal. With the help of computer simulations, we have quantified the effects of oblique deposition in terms of the deviations of local anisotropy directions from the surface normal. We also found that, with the increasing of the deposition angle, the compensation point shifts toward the Fe-rich side and the films become thinner.
We have developed a procedure to obtain the critical temperature for the amorphous-to-crystalline phase transition as well as the thermal conductivity and the specific heat of the phase-change media of optical recording. The procedure involves estimating the thermal conductivity from the data obtained by measuring the threshold cw laser power required for inducing phase transition. Then, from the data obtained in short-pulse measurements, we estimate the specific heat. In principle this method can yield the thermal parameters of any number of layers, so long as one of the layers is made of a phase-change material having a well-defined transition temperature.
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