Magnetic domain wall creep in the presence of an effective interlayer coupling field

Abstract: We investigate thermally activated domain wall creep in a system consisting of two ultrathin Co layers with perpendicular anisotropy coupled antiferromagnetically through a 4nm thick Pt spacer layer. The field driven dynamics of domain walls in the softer Co layer have been measured while keeping the harder Co layer negatively saturated. The effect of the interlayer interaction on the soft layer is interpreted in terms of an effective coupling field, , which results in an asymmetry between the domain wall speeds measured under positive and negative driving fields. We show that creep theory remains valid to describe the observed wall motion when the effective coupling field is included in the creep velocity law as a component of the total field acting on the wall. Using the resultant modified creep expression, we determine a value for the effective coupling field which is consistent with that measured from the shift of the soft layer''s minor hysteresis loop. The net antiferromagnetic coupling is attributed to a combination of RKKY and orange-peel coupling. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]