Domain wall assisted ordering of coupled nanomagnets

Abstract

This paper experimentally demonstrates that the stray field of a propagating domain wall can switch coupled nanomagnets to an antiferromagnetically ordered ground state. In our experiment, two nanomagnets placed side-by-side together with an input magnet form a coupled pair, or short wire segment. This structure is placed in close vicinity to a magnetic wire, which carries the domain wall. The local field of the wall is shown to influence the magnetic state of the magnets. This can be exploited for energy-efficient clocking of Nanomagnet Logic devices since the nucleation of the domain wall requires less external field than switching the single-domain nanomagnet directly with the external field.