Large Barkhausen jumps in relaxed Co-rich amorphous alloy ribbons

The effect of a previous thermal treatment (370/spl deg/C, 30 minutes) on the occurrence of a large Barkhausen jump (LBJ) present in the magnetization process of two Co-rich amorphous ribbons treated by means of current annealing has been studied. The LBJ is characterized by an applied magnetic field called the critical field, H*. The stress dependence of H* and reduced remanence, m/sub r/ allows one to analyze the nature of the LBJ effect which is strongly linked to the magnetoelastic anisotropy arising from the tensile stress (internal or applied) in the ribbons.