Investigation of shape-dependent switching of coupled nanomagnets

This paper presents a magnetic force microscopy study of antiferromagnetic ordering along chains of dipole-coupled single-domain permalloy nanomagnets with a variety of shapes. Magnetization reversal processes occur due to antiferromagnetic coupling between the closely spaced dots when an appropriate external magnetic field is applied. The goal of this study was to investigate the switching properties and correlation lengths as a function of nanomagnet geometry. We have found that certain shapes (due to their stronger stray fields) clearly show stronger interaction than others when the chain is demagnetized. In addition we have seen that the performance of the nanomagnets also depends on the method of demagnetization, and this fact must be taken into account when shape engineering is used to design coupled nanomagnet systems for a given application.