Demagnetizing Fields in Thin Magnetic Films

Demagnetizing fields play an important role in the operation of many thin magnetic film devices. A requirement of high packing density leads to strong localization of induced changes in magnetization; and, therefore, to correspondingly large demagnetizing fields and drive currents. A treatment of the demagnetizing field problem for thin film materials is given here for film properties and fields which are nonuniform along the hard anisotropy axis. Specifically considered are saturating fields, variations in film thickness and anisotropy constant, interaction between films, and the effect of easy direction bias fields.