Modeling of hysteresis and magnetization curves for hexagonally ordered electrodeposited nanowires

Abstract

A computational model has been developed to investigate how the magnetostatic interactions affect the hysteresis and magnetization curves for hexagonal arrays of magnetic nanowires. The magnetization coupling between nanowires arises from the stray fields produced by the other nanowires composing the array such that the field at each nanowire is the sum of the external field and the interaction field with the other nanowires. Using only two adjustable parameters: the interaction between nearest neighbors and the width of the Gaussian distribution in switching fields centered around the measured coercivity, simulations are compared with the experimentally measured hysteresis and magnetization curves for electrodeposited Co0.45Fe0.55 alloy nanowires with diameters from 12 to 48 nm. Excellent agreement is found for all nanowire systems except for the largest diameter arrays where deviations from the Gaussian distribution of switching fields need to be considered.