Abstract
We study the magnetization configurations of the metastable states including various vortex states and cross-tie states existing in rectangular Permalloy thin films by micromagnetic simulations and by experiments. First, we use the micromagnetic simulation to obtain various stable states in rectangles. In our experiment, we fabricate the array of rectangular thin films with different aspect ratios. Several stable states are obtained in the array, and it is found that when the aspect ratio is close to one, only one vortex state can exist. In large aspect ratios, multivortex and cross-tie states can exist.