Dipolar interaction in multiple FINEMET ribbons

•One piece of ribbon can be used as a sensitive probe to study the dipolar interaction among the ribbons.•The dipole-dipole interaction will modify the magnetic properties of the FINEMET ribbons.•GMI effect is a sensitive tool to study the magnetic properties of the soft magnetic materials. The dipolar interaction between FINEMET ribbons was investigated using giant magneto-impedance (GMI) measurement. It can be clearly revealed via the GMI response of a probe ribbon surrounding by nanocrystalline ribbons, which exhibited a plateau in the lower field region and double-peak in higher region. The plateau was gradually broadened with increasing the number of the surrounding ribbons or decreasing its length and the peak position shifted to higher field at the meantime. The frequency also affects the shift of the GMI peak field of the probe ribbon at high driving frequency, but has slight influence on the plateau in the measurement frequency range. Furthermore, the dipolar field between one surrounding ribbon and the probe ribbon and the geometric factor of ribbons are calculated using dipolar magnetization model to explicate the variation of dipolar interaction with number and length of ribbons. Thus, the GMI response of a probe ribbon can be employed as a novel tool to investigate the dipolar interaction in FINEMET ribbons.