NUCLEATION OF MAGNETIZATION REVERSAL VIA CREATION OF PAIRS OF BLOCH WALLS

For a ferromagnet with exchange, uniaxial anisotropy, demagnetizing field, and an external magnetic field directed oppositely to the magnetization, the Landau-Lifshitz equations have time-independent, planar, local solutions of the Bloch and Néel type. These solutions are unstable. Analogous to a water droplet in supersaturated vapor for which a radius of unstable equilibrium exists, the solution for a given magnetic field is the configuration of smallest energy through which a magnetization reversal can nucleate. © 1990 The American Physical Society.