Thermal stability of a magnetic domain wall in nanowires

Fukami, Shunsuke*; Ieda, Junichi   ; Ohno, Hideo*

We study thermal stability of a magnetic domain wall pinned in nanowires made of Co/Ni multilayers, and analyze the effective volume that governs the thermal stability. We find that, above a critical wire width, the domain wall depinning is initiated by a subvolume excitation and that the critical width is dependent on the wire thickness. The obtained findings are supported by the distribution of critical current density for domain wall depinning and are qualitatively described by considering the balance between the Zeeman energy and domain wall elastic energy.