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Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 157202 (2002)

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Coarsening of Antiferromagnetic Domains in Multilayers: The Key Role of Magnetocrystalline Anisotropy

D. L. Nagy,¹ L. Bottyán,¹ B. Croonenborghs,² L. Deák,¹ B. Degroote,² J. Dekoster,² H. J. Lauter,³ V. Lauter-Pasyuk,^4,5 O. Leupold,⁶ M. Major,^1,2 J. Meersschaut,² O. Nikonov,^3,4 A. Petrenko,⁴ R. Rüffer,⁶ H. Spiering,⁷ and E. Szilágyi¹

¹KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, P.O. Box 49, H-1525 Budapest, Hungary
²K. U. Leuven, Instituut voor Kern- en Stralingsfysica, Celestijnenlaan 200 D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium
³Institut Laue-Langevin, BP 156, F-38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
⁴Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141 980 Dubna, Moscow Region, Russia
⁵Technische Universität München, James Franck Strasse 1, D-85747 Garching, Germany
⁶European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 220, F-38043 Grenoble, France
⁷Institut für Anorganische Chemie und Analytische Chemie, Johannes Gutenberg Universität, D-55099 Mainz, Germany

(Received 29 May 2001; published 29 March 2002)

The domain structure of an antiferromagnetic superlattice is studied. Synchrotron Mössbauer and polarized neutron reflectometric maps show micrometer-size primary domain formation as the external field decreases from saturation to remanence. A secondary domain state consisting mainly of at least 1 order of magnitude larger domains is created when a small field along the layer magnetizations induces a bulk-spin-flop transition. The domain-size distribution is reproducibly dependent on the magnetic prehistory. The condition for domain coarsening is shown to be the equilibrium of the external field energy with the anisotropy energy. ©2002 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v88/e157202
doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.157202
PACS: 75.70.Kw, 75.25.+z, 75.30.Gw        Additional Information

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