Thermal stability of a magnetic domain wall in nanowires

We study the thermal stability of a magnetic domain wall pinned in nanowires with various widths and thicknesses made of Co/Ni multilayers and analyze the effective volume that governs the thermal stability. We find that, above a critical wire width, the domain wall depinning is initiated by a subvolume excitation and that the critical width is dependent on the wire thickness. The obtained findings are supported by the distribution of critical current density for domain wall depinning and are qualitatively described by an analytical model in which the balance between the Zeeman energy and domain wall elastic energy is considered. We also show a different behavior between the device size dependence of the thermal stability and that of critical current, leading to an enhancement of domain wall motion efficiency with decreasing the device size.