Amorphous magnetic wires based on Co-Fe alloys exhibit exceptionally soft magnetic behavior, making them attractive for advanced sensing technologies. Their magnetic performance is governed primarily by internal stresses, magnetoelastic interactions, and induced anisotropies. We demonstrate that helical magnetic anisotropy induced by stress annealing is fully reversible upon thermal relaxation, a mechanism not previously demonstrated for resetting the magnetic state in these wires. Magneto-optical Kerr effect imaging reveals corresponding changes in surface domain structures, confirming the reversible nature of magnetization processes at the microscale. We attribute this behavior to anelastic rearrangements and orientational ordering of nanoscale clusters within the amorphous matrix, which modulate magnetoelastic energy and produce the induced anisotropy. The demonstrated reversibility provides a mechanism for resettable or tunable magnetic responses in wire-based magnetic sensors and other precision electromagnetic devices.
Óvári et al. (Thu,) studied this question.