Measurement of activation magnetic moment in ferromagnetic thin films

We have investigated the activation magnetic moment, which characterizes the basis magnetic moment acting as a single magnetic particle during magnetization reversal. The activation magnetic moment was measured from each local area on continuous ferromagnetic thin films, by analyzing the magnetic field dependence of magnetization reversal of the corresponding local area based on a thermally activated relaxation process. It was found that the activation magnetic moment was nonuniform on submicrometer scale; the fluctuation increased with increasing the number of layers in Co/Pd multilayers. The distribution could be well analyzed by exp($\delta$m$\^$3/2/), where $\delta$m is the deviation of the activation magnetic moment from the mean value.