Role of magnetostatic interactions in micromagnetic structure of multiferroics

While it is well known that magnetoelastic coupling governs the magnitude of field-induced strain in magnetic shape memory alloys, the present study shows that the zero-field micromagnetic structure and the pathway leading to the field-induced strain is governed by magnetostatic coupling across martensite twins. The micromagnetic investigations reveal a new energy barrier to the motion of domain walls arising from magnetostatic coupling between walls across the twin planes.