Ferromagnetic thin layers
The field of ferromagnetism of thin films and multilayers is currently undergoing a renaissance driven by advances in theory, experiment and technology. Magnetic multilayers consist of several ferromagnetic layers separated typically by a non-magnetic layer. They are artificially manufactured composite materials with unusual physical properties that do not otherwise exist in nature. Recent advances in fabrication of these structures allows to build metamaterials in which previously negligible effects gain importance. The dependence on the layer geometry, impurities and temperature are now essential for the understanding of multilayer properties.
This new physics has to be governed by the micromagnetic variational principle framework -- the main tool for studying magnetization behavior in ferromagnets. It is a non-convex, nonlocal variational problem whose local minima correspond to metastable magnetization distributions. The complexity of this problem is due to its nonlocal character (arising from the magnetostatic interaction) and the presence of multiple length scales (magnetic parameters, thickness of the films, edge roughness, small pinholes). In this project we plan to investigate many problems arising in ferromagnetic thin films and multilayers using modeling, analysis and numerical simulations.
Collaborators: M. Morini (Parma, Italy), C. Muratov (NJIT, USA), J.M. Robbins (Bristol), D. Sheka (KSU, Ukraine), O. Tretiakov (Tohoku, Japan)
Simulations by A.G. Kolesnikov (Far Eastern Federal University)
