Remanent state studies of elliptical magnetic particles

Magnetization configurations in an elliptical ferromagnetic particle with sizes 0.6x0.3x0.015 μm3 are simulated. Starting at the saturated state along the particle's long axis and magnetizing the particle along its short axis, we have obtained a new skew-symmetric state at remanence with pinning of the magnetization at the particle's edges. Such a non-uniform state precedes a single-vortex one which can be achieved by two passes across zero field. These results are found to be in agreement with those obtained from our magnetic force microscopy observations of the magnetization in patterned Fe-Cr particles