Magnetostatic interaction in arrays of nanometric permalloy wires: A magneto-optic Kerr effect and a Brillouin light scattering study

Two arrays of permalloy parallel wires, 20 nm thick, having the same width of 175 nm and different spacing of 35 and 175 nm were prepared by means of deep ultraviolet lithography and lift-off process. The effect of magnetostatic interaction on both the static and dynamic magnetic properties of arrays of wires has been investigated by means of magneto-optic and Brillouin light scattering techniques, respectively. In particular, the magnetization switching of the samples, measured by vectorial magneto-optical Kerr effect magnetometry and microscopy shows the effects of dipolar interaction in the case of 35 nm spaced wires, while in the other sample the measurements show that the wires are substantially noninteracting. The Brillouin light scattering measurements showed that for the sample with interwire spacing of 35 nm, dipolar coupling between magnetic wires leads to the formation of a collective mode which has a continuous spectrum and exists in a range of frequencies, while for the 175 nm spaced wires the spin modes are dispersionless. To quantify the investigated effects, a theory developed earlier for an isolated wire has been extended to the case of a one-dimensional array of ferromagnetic wires.