Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The magnetic vortex nucleation process in nanometer- and micrometer-sized magnetic disks undergoes several phases with distinct spin configurations called the nucleation states. Before formation of the final vortex state, small submicron disks typically proceed through the so-called C-state while the larger micron-sized disks proceed through the more complicated vortex-pair state or the buckling state. This work classifies the nucleation states using micromagnetic simulations and provides evidence for the stability of vortex-pair and buckling states in static magnetic fields using magnetic imaging techniques and electrical transport measurements. Lorentz Transmission Electron Microscopy and Magnetic Transmission X-ray Microscopy are employed to reveal the details of spin configuration in each of the nucleation states. We further show that it is possible to unambiguously identify these states by electrical measurements via the anisotropic magnetoresistance effect. Combination of the electrical transport and magnetic imaging techniques confirms stability of a vortex-antivortex-vortex spin configuration which emerges from the buckling state in static magnetic fields.