Thermally activated depinning of a narrow domain wall from a single defect.

ABSTRACT

We describe the field induced depinning process of a magnetic domain wall (DW) from a single bidimensional nanometric defect. The DW propagates in a wire lithographed on a film with strong perpendicular anisotropy. We observe a statistical distribution of the relaxation time consistent with a Néel-Brown picture of magnetization reversal. This indicates that the nanometric DW can be considered as an ideal monodomain particle switching over a single energy barrier. Such a stochastic character of DW depinning has to be taken into account for spintronic applications.