Experimental study of the local magnetization reversal in exchange-biased spin-valve sensors

During the write action in magnetoresistive random access memories, the bit status is set by applying current pulses through on-chip word lines. The magnetic fields generated in this way are sufficient for switching the bit status. In this paper, an experimental study of the switching process in small spin-valves is initiated by assessing the effect of magnetic fields, generated by the on-chip word lines, on the nucleation of magnetic domains. The transport properties of micron-scale exchange-biased spin-valve sensors were used to detect the influence of these local magnetic fields.