title: Direct observation of Barkhausen avalanche in Co thin films.
abstract: We report direct full-field magneto-optical observations of Barkhausen avalanches in Co polycrystalline thin films at criticality. We provide experimental evidence for the validity of a phenomenological model of the Barkhausen avalanche originally proposed by Cizeau, Zapperi, Durin, and Stanley [Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4669 (1997)]], where the model describes a 180 degrees -type flexible domain wall deformed by a localized defect with consideration of long-range dipolar interaction. The Barkhausen jump areas show a power-law scaling distribution with critical exponent tau approximately 1.33 for all the samples having different thickness from 5 to 50 nm, which is in accord with the two-dimensional prediction of the model.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Center for Nanospinics of Spintronic Materials, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Taejon 305-701, Korea.
authors.forename: Dong-Hyun
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sug-Bong
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Choe
authors.forename: Sung-Chul
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Shin