Intrinsic Nature of Stochastic Domain Wall Pinning Phenomena in Magnetic Nanowire Devices

Finite temperature micromagnetic simulations are used to probe stochastic domain wall pinning behaviours in magnetic nanowire devices. By exploring field-induced propagation both below and above the Walker breakdown field it is shown that all experimentally observed phenomena can be comprehensively explained by the influence of thermal perturbations on the domain walls’ magnetisation dynamics. Nanowires with finite edge roughness are also investigated, and these demonstrate how this additional form of disorder couples with thermal perturbations to significantly enhance stochasticity. Cumulatively, these results indicate that stochastic pinning is an intrinsic feature of DW behaviour at finite temperatures, and would not be suppressed even in hypothetical systems where initial DW states and experimental parameters were perfectly defined.