Interaction effect on switching behaviors of paired "Pac-Man" array

Interactions between neighboring cells become increasingly important due to the miniaturization of magnetoelectronic devices. This paper studies the effect of magnetic interaction on the switching behaviors in two different configurations of paired Pac-man shape Permalloy elements: back-to-back and face-to-face configurations. From as-patterned state MFM images, it is observed that the face-to-face configuration is prone to form either two single domains with an antiferromagnetic configuration, one single domain with one vortex or a double vortex configuration. MOKE hysteresis loops show that the coercivity for the face-to-face configuration is smaller than the back-to-back configuration. These experimental results indicate that the back-to-back configuration has weaker interaction between the two Pac-man elements than the face-to-face configuration. We further varied the aspect ratio of Pac-man elements in the pair arrays to tune the magnetic interaction. It was found that the coercivity of pair array increased with the higher cell aspect ratio. Micromagnetic simulation was also performed to simulate the switching process for the two different configurations. Overall, the back-to-back configuration is recommended for applications that demands less inter-cell interactions.