Nanomechanical torque magnetometry of permalloy cantilevers

There is mounting interest in bridging the fields of nanomechanics and nanomagnetism. Metallic nanocantilevers, which are magnetic throughout their volume, were fabricated using permalloy in order to detect domain switching along the cantilever length through mechanical deflection driven by magnetic torque. A finite element model describing the interaction of the magnetization of the cantilever with an external driving field is discussed, and illustrated for the simple example of magnetization reversal via propagation of a straight domain wall. The interferometrically obtained cantilever deflection through the magnetic actuation of the fundamental mode exhibits magnetic hysteresis. The experimental results are also compared to the finite element mechanical transformation of the output from a Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert based micromagnetic simulation of the hysteresis. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3525273]