Microwave assisted switching in a Ni81Fe19 ellipsoid

The authors demonstrate the stimulation of the magnetization switching process of a Ni81Fe19 ellipsoid, which is dominated by domain nucleation and propagation, by applying a transverse microwave field. The study of the quasistatic switching behavior under the influence of a microwave field was performed using longitudinal magneto-optic Kerr effect magnetometry. A strong reduction of the coercive field for microwave frequencies between 500 and 900 MHz has been observed, which can be attributed to two different mechanisms: microwave stimulated enhancement of domain nucleation and microwave stimulated growth of the reversed domain. The authors prove that heating is not the origin of the reduction of the coercive field. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.