Influence of angular orientation, shape, and arrangement of antidots on magnetic reversal in thin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

We report a micromagnetic studies of the magnetic reversal and domain pattern formation in antidot arrays with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The effect of the lattice symmetry (triangular, square, quasicrystalline and random), antidot shapes (triangles, squares and crosses) as well as their angular orientation has been investigated. Simulations are performed by solving the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation and finding the system’s energy minimum for model with intrinsic and extrinsic defects, which allows to emulate the behaviour of real systems. The significant differences in coercivity values and domain sizes were noticed during rotation of the antidots around their centres. This parameter has a special impact on the magnetic behaviour of systems with square and cross-shaped antidots. The results are discussed in terms of the local shape anisotropy and equilibrium positions of domain walls.