arXiv subjects

Gianfranco Durin

Publications and source records attributed to Gianfranco Durin.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Beyond power laws: Universality in the average avalanche shape

We report the measurement of multivariable scaling functions for the temporal average shape of Barkhausen noise avalanches, and show that they are consistent with the predictions of simple mean-field theories. We bypass the confounding factors of time-retarded interactions (eddy currents) by measuring thin permal- loy films, and bypass thresholding effects and amplifier distortions by applying Wiener deconvolution. We find experimental shapes that are approximately symmetric, and track the evolution of the scaling function. We solve a mean- field theory for the magnetization dynamics and calculate the form of the scaling function in the presence of a demagnetizing field and a finite field ramp-rate, yielding quantitative agreement with the experiment.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2009

Effect of dipolar interactions for domain wall dynamics in magnetic thin films

We study the effect of long range dipolar forces on the dynamics and morphology of domain walls in magnetic thin films by numerical simulations of the spin-1 random field Ising model. By studying the size distribution of avalanches of domain wall motion arising as a response to quasistatic external driving, we observe a cross-over from the case dominated by short range interactions to another universality class where the long range dipolar forces become important. This crossover is accompanied with a change of the domain wall morphology from a rough wall to walls with zigzag structure.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2009

Modeling domain wall dynamics in thin magnetic strips with disorder

We present a line-based model of transverse domain walls in thin magnetic strips, to study the effect of bulk disorder on the domain wall dynamics within the thermally activated creep regime. The creep velocity is found to exhibit a non-linear dependence on both applied magnetic fields and electric currents, characterized by similar creep exponents for both forms of the external drive. We discuss briefly the significance of the inherently stochastic thermally activated domain wall motion from the point of view of spintronics applications, where it generally is essential to be able to control the domain wall displacement in a deterministic manner.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2007

Eddy current damping of a moving domain wall: beyond the quasistatic approximation

In conducting ferromagnetic materials, a moving domain wall induces eddy currents in the sample which give rise to an effective retarding pressure on the domain wall. We show here that the pressure is not just proportional to the instantaneous velocity of the wall, as often assumed in domain wall models, but depends on the history of the motion. We calculate the retarding pressure by solving the Maxwell equations for the field generated by the eddy currents, and show how its effect can be accounted for by associating a negative effective mass to the magnetic wall. We analyze the dependence of this effect on the sample geometry and discuss the implications for Barkhausen noise measurements.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2006

Loss separation for dynamic hysteresis in magnetic thin films

We develop a theory for dynamic hysteresis in ferromagnetic thin films, on the basis of the phenomenological principle of loss separation. We observe that, remarkably, the theory of loss separation, originally derived for bulk metallic materials, is applicable to disordered magnetic systems under fairly general conditions regardless of the particular damping mechanism. We confirm our theory both by numerical simulations of a driven random--field Ising model, and by re--examining several experimental data reported in the literature on dynamic hysteresis in thin films. All the experiments examined and the simulations find a natural interpretation in terms of loss separation. The power losses dependence on the driving field rate predicted by our theory fits satisfactorily all the data in the entire frequency range, thus reconciling the apparent lack of universality observed in different materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2005

The role of stationarity in magnetic crackling noise

We discuss the effect of the stationarity on the avalanche statistics of Barkhuasen noise signals. We perform experimental measurements on a Fe$_{85}$B$_{15}$ amorphous ribbon and compare the avalanche distributions measured around the coercive field, where the signal is stationary, with those sampled through the entire hysteresis loop. In the first case, we recover the scaling exponents commonly observed in other amorphous materials ($τ=1.3$, $α=1.5$). while in the second the exponents are significantly larger ($τ=1.7$, $α=2.2$). We provide a quantitative explanation of the experimental results through a model for the depinning of a ferromagnetic domain wall. The present analysis shed light on the unusually high values for the Barkhausen noise exponents measured by Spasojevic et al. [Phys. Rev. E 54 2531 (1996)].

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2005

Signature of effective mass in crackling noise asymmetry

Crackling noise is a common feature in many dynamic systems [1-9], the most familiar instance of which is the sound made by a sheet of paper when crumpled into a ball. Although seemingly random, this noise contains fundamental information about the properties of the system in which it occurs. One potential source of such information lies in the asymmetric shape of noise pulses emitted by a diverse range of noisy systems [8-12], but the cause of this asymmetry has lacked explanation [1]. Here we show that the leftward asymmetry observed in the Barkhausen effect [2] - the noise generated by the jerky motion of domain walls as they interact with impurities in a soft magnet - is a direct consequence of a magnetic domain wall's negative effective mass. As well as providing a means of determining domain wall effective mass from a magnet's Barkhausen noise our work suggests an inertial explanation for the origin of avalanche asymmetries in crackling noise phenomena more generally.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2004

Ground state optimization and hysteretic demagnetization: the random-field Ising model

We compare the ground state of the random-field Ising model with Gaussian distributed random fields, with its non-equilibrium hysteretic counterpart, the demagnetized state. This is a low energy state obtained by a sequence of slow magnetic field oscillations with decreasing amplitude. The main concern is how optimized the demagnetized state is with respect to the best-possible ground state. Exact results for the energy in d=1 show that in a paramagnet, with finite spin-spin correlations, there is a significant difference in the energies if the disorder is not so strong that the states are trivially almost alike. We use numerical simulations to better characterize the difference between the ground state and the demagnetized state. For d>=3 the random-field Ising model displays a disorder induced phase transition between a paramagnetic and a ferromagnetic state. The locations of the critical points R_c(DS), R_c(GS) differ for the demagnetized state and ground state. Consequently, it is in this regime that the optimization of the demagnetized stat is the worst whereas both deep in the paramagnetic regime and in the ferromagnetic one the states resemble each other to a great extent. We argue based on the numerics that in d=3 the scaling at the transition is the same in the demagnetized and ground states. This claim is corroborated by the exact solution of the model on the Bethe lattice, where the R_c's are also different.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2004

The Barkhausen effect

We review key experimental and theoretical results on the Barkhausen effect, focusing on the statistical analysis of the noise. We discuss the experimental methods and the material used and review recent measurements. The picture emerging from the experimental data is that Barkhausen avalanche distributions and power spectra can be described by scaling laws as in critical phenomena. In addition, there is growing evidence that soft ferromagnetic bulk materials can be grouped in different classes according to the exponent values. Soft thin films still remain to be fully explored both experimentally and theoretically. Reviewing theories and models proposed in the recent past to account for the scaling properties of the Barkhausen noise, we conclude that the domain wall depinning scenario successfully explains most experimental data. Finally, we report a translation from German of the original paper by H. Barkhausen.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2002

Microscopic foundations of the Rayleigh law of hysteresis

The hysteresis properties of ferromagnetic materials at low field are described by the Rayleigh law. We analyze the problem in light of modern statistical mechanics models of hysteresis. In particular, we compute the demagnetization curve and derive the Rayleigh parameters a and b in the random-field Ising model and in a model of domain wall depinning. In the random-field Ising model the Rayleigh law is obeyed only in the disorder dominated phase, while in the low disorder phase it is not possible to demagnetize the sample. This approach allows us to link a and b to microstructural parameters, such as the domain wall energy, the internal disorder or the exchange interactions. Finally, our results are compared with experiments.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2002

Low field hysteresis in disordered ferromagnets

We analyze low field hysteresis close to the demagnetized state in disordered ferromagnets using the zero temperature random-field Ising model. We solve the demagnetization process exactly in one dimension and derive the Rayleigh law of hysteresis. The initial susceptibility a and the hysteretic coefficient b display a peak as a function of the disorder width. This behavior is confirmed by numerical simulations d=2,3 showing that in limit of weak disorder demagnetization is not possible and the Rayleigh law is not defined. These results are in agreement with experimental observations on nanocrystalline magnetic materials.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2000

Scaling exponents for Barkhausen avalanches in polycrystals and amorphous ferromagnets

We investigate the scaling properties of the Barkhausen effect, recording the noise in several soft ferromagnetic materials: polycrystals with different grain sizes and amorphous alloys. We measure the Barkhausen avalanche distributions and determine the scaling exponents. In the limit of vanishing external field rate, we can group the samples in two distinct classes, characterized by exponents τ= 1.50 \pm 0.05 or τ= 1.27 \pm 0.03, for the avalanche size distributions. We interpret these results in terms of the depinning transition of domain walls and obtain an expression relating the cutoff of the distributions to the demagnetizing factor which is in quantitative agreement with experiments.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv1998

Barkhausen noise in soft amorphous magnetic materials under applied stress

We report experimental measurements of Barkhausen noise on Fe_{64}Co_{21}B_{15} amorphous alloy under tensile stress. We interpret the scaling behavior of the noise distributions in terms of the depinning transition of the domain walls. We show that stress induced anisotropy enhance the effect of short-range elastic interactions that dominate over long-range dipolar interactions. The universality class is thus different from the one usually observed in Barkhausen noise measurements and is characterized by the exponents τ= 1.3 and α= 1.5, for the decay of the distributions of jump sizes and durations.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv1998

Dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall: avalanches, depinning transition and the Barkhausen effect

We study the dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall driven by an external magnetic field through a disordered medium. The avalanche-like motion of the domain walls between pinned configurations produces a noise known as the Barkhausen effect. We discuss experimental results on soft ferromagnetic materials, with reference to the domain structure and the sample geometry, and report Barkhausen noise measurements on Fe$_{21}$Co$_{64}$B$_{15}$ amorphous alloy. We construct an equation of motion for a flexible domain wall, which displays a depinning transition as the field is increased. The long-range dipolar interactions are shown to set the upper critical dimension to $d_c=3$, which implies that mean-field exponents (with possible logarithmic correction) are expected to describe the Barkhausen effect. We introduce a mean-field infinite-range model and show that it is equivalent to a previously introduced single-degree-of-freedom model, known to reproduce several experimental results. We numerically simulate the equation in $d=3$, confirming the theoretical predictions. We compute the avalanche distributions as a function of the field driving rate and the intensity of the demagnetizing field. The scaling exponents change linearly with the driving rate, while the cutoff of the distribution is determined by the demagnetizing field, in remarkable agreement with experiments.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv1997

Dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall and the Barkhausen effect

We derive an equation of motion for the the dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall driven by an external magnetic field through a disordered medium and we study the associated depinning transition. The long-range dipolar interactions set the upper critical dimension to be $d_c=3$, so we suggest that mean-field exponents describe the Barkhausen effect for three-dimensional soft ferromagnetic materials. We analyze the scaling of the Barkhausen jumps as a function of the field driving rate and the intensity of the demagnetizing field, and find results in quantitative agreement with experiments on crystalline and amorphous soft ferromagnetic alloys.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗