MRSEC Participants: Doug Stone and Professor David Dahl
MRSEC Advisor: Dan Dahlberg
The direction of magnetization of nanoscopic ellipsoidal permalloy dots can theoretically be reversed using a combination of a DC magnetic fields lightly smaller than the coercive field and a magnetic pulsed field along the hard axis of the particle. I have examined the properties of the magnetic pulse necessary to cause magnetic reversal through simulations using LLG Micromagnetics Simulator software. I have also studied magnetic reversal experimentally using arrays of permalloy dots created using Electron Beam Lithography. Preliminary experimental results are inconclusive but suggest that magnetic reversal depends on the duration of the magnetic pulse. Understanding how to control the direction of magnetization of these particles could be applied to the development of MRAM.