Controlling individual domain walls in ferromagnetic nanowires for memory and sensor applications

Controlled motion of 180° and 360° domain walls along planar nanowires is presented. Standard Landau - Lifshitz micromagnetic modeling has been used to simulate the response of the domain walls to the application of an external magnetic field. A 180° wall is quickly and easily moved with the application of an applied. field along the axis of the wire but a 360°domain wall is stationary in the same case. An oscillatory applied field can be used to continually move the wall along the wires axis. The speed at which the 360° domain wall is found to be several times slower than a similar 180° domain wall and is limited by interaction between the magnetization of the domain wall and the external field.