Micromagnetic modeling of nanoscale nickel dots, and films, and thin permalloy films

The research project that will be completed for my thesis will be in the field of micromagnetics. Micromagnetics is the calculation of the magnetic structure of materials. My thesis will cover two main types of micromagnetic calculations on a variety of magnetic materials. Standard Landau Lifshitz Gilbert (LLG) calculations will be done on nickel thin films previously studied in experiment. The films exhibit magnetic stripe domains, but the full magnetic structure is not understood. Using the results of the films, small magnetic dots will be studied in hopes of determining the energetics of domain structures observed experimentally, as well as finding out the full three dimensional magnetic structure of the dots.; In addition Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are to be done on permalloy (NiFe) and permalloy like thin films. The purpose of these simulations will be to include the effects of finite temperature on the thin films. The studies concentrate on the dynamics of the temperature and field driven reversal mechanisms. Hysteresis loops will be calculated for the films, and the magnetic reversal process will be imaged. It is hoped that a comparison will be able to be made between the Monte Carlo work and the LLG work in the hopes of determining a time step for the MC simulations. It is proposed that Monte Carlo type simulations will be useful for long time studies of magnetic recording media.