Magnetic anisotropy engineering in square magnetic elements

Square magnetic elements with side in the 100–500nm range have been fabricated using the focused ion beam (FIB) milling techniquefrom a 10 nm thick, single-crystal Fe film, epitaxially grown on MgO(0 0 1). Thanks to the good crystal quality of the film, magneticelements with well-defined magnetocrystalline anisotropy have been prepared, while the fine control of the size and shape of the magnetsallows for the effective engineering of the anisotropic behavior of the magnetostatic energy that determines the so-called configurationalanisotropy. Micromagnetic calculations and experiments show that the angular dependence of the transverse susceptibility has a strongdependence on the material parameters as well as on the static applied field. This allows the effective engineering of the total anisotropyof the magnets.r 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.