Anomalous magnetic relaxation in thin Pd0.99Fe0.01 films

Abstract

The magnetic relaxation in Pd_0.99Fe_0.01 films, which have the thicknesses that are practically important for cryoelectronics (25 and 40 nm), is detected and experimentally studied. The relaxation is shown to be substantial only in thin films. The magnetization relaxation is found to be well described by the sum of two exponential functions with characteristic times that differ by an order of magnitude from each other. The characteristic relaxation time and the ratio of the contributions of two relaxations depend on temperature. The activation energies of the relaxation processes are determined. The activation volume is shown to correspond to a 20-nm ferromagnetic cluster. The results obtained agree with the model of two-component magnetization in thin PdFe films [6].