Identification of switching fields in magnetic nanostructures by partial first order reversal curves

A nonparametric approach to the identification of magnetic anisotropies in ferromagnetic nanostructures is described in this article. By an adequate choice of convenient measurement points on the first order reversal curves (FORC), essential information about either switching fields or symmetry of FORC diagrams are obtained from sets of five-point reversal curves only. Numerical simulations performed on assemblies of particles with known switching field distributions indicate that this method presents a high degree of accuracy and can successfully be used in order to characterize individual entities in magnetic nanostructures. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.