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Article Dans Une Revue Applied Physics Letters Année : 2008

Field driven ferromagnetic phase nucleation and propagation in antiferromagnetically coupled multilayer films with perpendicular anisotropy

Résumé

We investigate the reversal process in ͕͓Co/ Pt͔ X−1 Co/ Ru͖ ϫ 16/ ͓Co/ Pt͔ X multilayer films by magnetometry and magnetic transmission x-ray microscopy. After demagnetization, a stable one-dimensional ferromagnetic ͑FM͒ stripe domain phase ͑tiger-tail phase͒ for a thick sample ͑X =7͒ is imaged, while metastable sharp antiferromagnetic domain walls are observed in the remanent state for a thinner stack sample ͑X =6͒. When applying an external magnetic field the sharp domain walls of the thinner sample gradually transform into the FM phase via separate nucleation of many isolated FM domains all along the domain boundary. We present energy calculations that reveal the underlying energetics driving the overall reversal mechanism. Strong perpendicular anisotropy Co/ Pt multilayer systems that are antiferromagnetically coupled via thin Ru or NiO interlayers have recently been proposed as model systems to study the competition between local interlayer exchange and long-range dipolar interactions. 1–4 The observation of magnetic structure transformations induced by extrinsic parameters such as a varying magnetic field provides the possibility to investigate the delicate energy balance in such systems. 5–7 Previous experiments used mostly magnetic force microscopy as microscopic characterization method, which allows for the detection of surface stray fields only, but never completely eliminates image artifacts due to tip/sample interactions. 2,4,5
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Dates et versions

hal-01345246 , version 1 (18-07-2016)

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Thomas Hauet, C.M. Günther, O Hovorka, Andreas Berger, M.-y Im, et al.. Field driven ferromagnetic phase nucleation and propagation in antiferromagnetically coupled multilayer films with perpendicular anisotropy. Applied Physics Letters, 2008, ⟨10.1063/1.2961001⟩. ⟨hal-01345246⟩
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