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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 24: Magnetic Imaging and Scattering Techniques
MA 24.4: Talk
Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 10:15–10:30, H22
Domain structure in the vicinity of a spin reorientation transition — •Maciej Dabrowski1, Andreas K. Schmid2, Marek Przybylski1,3, and Jürgen Kirschner1,4 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik, Halle, Germany — 2National Centre for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA — 3Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland — 4Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät II, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
There are two non-equivalent magnetization directions in the sample plane if ferromagnetic thin films are grown on stepped (001) surfaces. Moreover, there are additional terms to the anisotropy energy due to the steps, which cause the magnetization to tilt differently from the film plane if the in-plane magnetization orientation is kept perpendicular to the steps or along the steps. The thickness driven spin reorientation transition (SRT) for Fe films grown on a stepped surface of Ag(001) was studied by spin-polarized low energy electron microscopy (SPLEEM). Direct imaging of magnetic domains and local magnetization orientation was performed using three orthogonal spin polarizations of the incident electron beam. While the Fe film thickness increases, stripe domains expand and align perpendicular to the step edges. Our experiment demonstrates that as soon as the magnetization starts to tilt from the sample plane, a discontinuous in-plane SRT occurs and the magnetization prefers to be oriented perpendicular to the step edges.