Irreversible magnetic processes under biaxial and uniaxial magnetic anisotropies

Irreversible magnetic processes have been investigated in magnetic systems with two different anisotropy symmetries (uniaxial and biaxial) through angular measurement of the switching field, the irreversible susceptibility and the magnetic viscosity. These two systems consist of two-dimensional cobalt ferrite hetero-structures epitaxially grown on (100) and (110) MgO substrate. It is found that for uniaxial anisotropy the irreversible characteristics of the magnetization are large and display a strong angular dependence, which exhibits its maximum at the easy axis and drops quickly to vanish at the hard axis. However, for biaxial anisotropy the magnetization irreversible characteristics are considerably reduced and are less sensitive to the field angle.