Modeling the effects of nanosized precipitates on magnetic hysteresis and Barkhausen effect signal

A model has been developed for describing the effects of randomly distributed precipitates on magnetic hysteresis and Barkhausen emissions based on a hysteretic-stochastic process model of domain wall dynamics. The pinning of magnetic domain walls by spherical precipitates is described in terms of the pinning strength, which is proportional to the number density and cross-sectional area of the precipitates, and of the interaction range, which depends on the particle spacing and grain size. The model was used to simulate hysteresis loops and Barkhausen effect signals of a series of thermally aged FeCu samples with different number densities and sizes of Cu-rich precipitates. The linear dependence of the coercivity on the sample hardness was reproduced in the simulations. The rms values and pulse height distributions of the measured and modeled Barkhausen signals show similar dependence on the aging time, which can be interpreted by considering the effects of varying the precipitate size and spacing on the strength and interaction range of domain wall pinning. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3672403]