Wall clusters and domain structure conversions

The significance of wall clusters, which is a new concept in the theory of soft magnetic materials, is experimentally demonstrated in thin Permalloy configurations. The wall cluster is a collection of domain walls that have one intersection line in common. The transformation of the domain structures takes place through a coherent movement of the domain walls. The correlation between the walls is especially dominant at the intersection line of the walls, called the cluster knot. Relations for the mutual positions of the walls in the wall clusters of great practical relevance are derived explicitly and verified experimentally. The domain structure is formed by the concatenation of wall clusters. The clock sense of the rotation over the walls in the clusters determine which walls of two clusters are linked during the formation of the domain structure. The creation of new clusters takes place through the unfolding of the walls of the clusters which originally coincide with the so-called creation line. As is demonstrated fully, the application of these ideas improves the insight into the complex process of domain structure transformations.