Subsystem domination influence on magnetization reversal in designed magnetic patterns in ferrimagnetic Tb/Co multilayers

Recent results showed that the ferrimagnetic compensation point and other characteristic features of Tb/Co ferrimagnetic multilayers can be tailored by He(+) ion bombardment. With appropriate choices of the He(+) ion dose, we prepared two types of lattices composed of squares with either Tb or Co domination. The magnetization reversal of the first lattice is similar to that seen in ferromagnetic heterostructures consisting of areas with different switching fields. However, in the second lattice, the creation of domains without accompanying domain walls is possible. These domain patterns are particularly stable because they simultaneously lower the demagnetizing energy and the energy associated with the presence of domain walls (exchange and anisotropy). For both lattices, studies of magnetization reversal show that this process takes place by the propagation of the domain walls. If they are not present at the onset, the reversal starts from the nucleation of reversed domains and it is followed by domain wall propagation. The magnetization reversal process does not depend significantly on the relative sign of the effective magnetization in areas separated by domain walls.