Magnetostrictive Fe-base amorphous wires spontaneously exhibit square-shape
d hysteresis loops that is characterized by a single quite large Barkhausen
jump when the switching magnetic held is reached. This jump is ascribed to
the propagation of a wall along the wire. In this paper, deeper informatio
n is reported on the propagation characteristics in these wires as a functi
on of the amplitude and the frequency of the magnetic field generating such
propagation. In particular, the wall velocity and its length are experimen
tally determined and the results are analysed considering the quasi-planar
shape model for the wall that has been introduced recently, whose validity
is confirmed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.