Magnetostatic interactions and coercivities of ferromagnetic soft nanowires in uniform length arrays

First-order reversal curve diagrams have been used to investigate magnetostatic interactions and average coercivity of individual wires in soft ferromagnetic uniform length nanowire arrays. We present a method for identifying these physical parameters on the out-of-plane first-order reversal curve diagrams: the position of the irreversible part on the critical axis is a good approximation to the average value of the nanowire coercivity and the maximum interaction field is equal to the interaction field at saturation. Their dependence upon material (CoFeB and Ni) and nanowire length are presented. The magnetostatic interactions increase linearly with length, in agreement with a model developed previously. The global array coercivity, obtained from magnetization curves, is generally lower than the apparent average coercivity for individual nanowires. This coercivity reduction increases linearly with the magnetostatic interactions. The general shape of the out-of-plane first-order reversal curve diagrams is compared with those obtained from a theoretical moving Preisach model.