Magnetoelastic modelling in soft nanocrystalline alloys

Magnetoelastic effects in ultra soft nanocrystalline alloys are investigated theoretically and experimentally. From Hc measurements, extraction of magnetoelastic contribution is carried out using a formalism obtained revisiting random anisotropy model (RAM) in the light of domain walls (DW) displacements, our approach based on theoretical investigations on the way of a reversal of a correlated volume (CV) located in the vicinity of a DW. Modelling of magnetoelastic effects shows that even in perfectly relaxed samples, a magnetoelastic contribution exists due to elastic frustration experienced by a CV during its magnetization reversal. Magnitude of this energy is large enough to drive coercivity of samples featuring grain diameter D around 10 nm, which are of major interest for applications.