Dependence of Barkhausen pattern reproducibility on hysteresis loop size

The Barkhausen pattern from the amorphous alloy Fe₂₁Co₆₄B₁₅ showed high sweep-to-sweep reproducibility for most sweeps when driven slowly over a minor hysteresis loop. Small changes in the maximum applied field led to completely different pulse patterns. When driven near saturation the sweep-to-sweep reproducibility was lost. Large features observed on rapid sweeps were also reproducible, but not when the sample was driven to fields about two orders of magnitude larger than the coercive field.