Spin reversal of Co/Pd multilayers under various strengths of an applied field has been quantitatively investigated. The reversal behavior was found to be essentially the same irrespective of the magnitude of the applied field, but the rate of domain evolution was considerably accelerated by increasing the applied field. Quantitative analysis revealed that both the wall-motion speed and the nucleation rate were exponentially proportional to the applied field. The proportional coefficients of the wall-motion speed and the nucleation rate for the samples were found to be same. The reversal ratio of the wall-motion speed to the nucleation rate was found to be nearly independent of an applied field strength. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)30508-4].