Magnetic domain wall pinning by a curved conduit

The pinning of a magnetic domain wall in a curved Permalloy (NiFe) nanostrip is experimentally studied. We examine the dependence of the pinning on both the radius of curvature of the bend and the chirality of the transverse domain wall. We find that bends act as potential wells or potential barriers depending on the chirality of the domain wall; the pinning field in both cases increases with decreasing radius of curvature. Micromagnetic simulations are consistent with the experimental results and show that both exchange and demagnetizing energies play an important role. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3246154]