Observation of domain wall segment jump among disorders

Abstract In creep regime, a magnetic domain wall (DW) is regarded as a one-dimensional object that consists of many small segments. However, observation of such a specific segment motion has remained a challenge due to its small size. Here we present direct evidence of individual DW segment motion by employing electrical Hall measurement. When the DW is moved by a weak magnetic field, we find that the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) resistance, RAHE, exhibits random jumps between two resistance states. We confirm that the RAHE jump appears in various samples but the RAHE jump is absent when the width of sample is narrower than DW jump size. These results imply the existence of a specific segment length that governs the DW creep motion.