Microwave assisted switching in a Ni81Fe19 ellipsoid

The authors demonstrate the stimulation of the magnetization switching process of a Ni81Fe19 ellipsoid, which is dominated by domain nucleation and propagation, by applying a transverse microwave field. The study of the quasistatic switching behavior under the influence of a microwave field was performed using longitudinal magneto-optic Kerr effect magnetometry. A strong reduction of the coercive field for microwave frequencies between 500 and 900MHz has been observed, which can be attributed to two different mechanisms: microwave stimulated enhancement of domain nucleation and microwave stimulated growth of the reversed domain. The authors prove that heating is not the origin of the reduction of the coercive field.