Statistical properties of Barkhausen noise in thin Fe films

The statistical properties of Barkhausen noise in an epitaxial Fe film grown on MgO have been characterized with magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements. The data reveal that magnetization reversal takes place via sudden jumps between a discrete number of randomly distributed magnetic configurations. The smallest jumps occur on a scale length of 10 mu m and their amplitude distribution can be fitted with a power law: P(Delta M) = Delta M-alpha with alpha = 1.1 and Delta M spanning over several decades.