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Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 1158–1161 (1997)

[Issue 6 – 10 February 1997 ]

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Micromagnetism of Epitaxial Fe(001) Elements on the Mesoscale

E. Gu, E. Ahmad, S. J. Gray, C. Daboo, J. A. C. Bland, and L. M. Brown

Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom

M. Rührig, A. J. McGibbon, and J. N. Chapman

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom

The size and orientation dependent micromagnetic structures of epitaxial Fe(001) thin film elements with in-plane anisotropy are reported. A transition from single domain to multidomain remanent states is observed upon reducing the element size beneath ~50 µm, indicating that the in-plane dipolar field becomes competitive with the magnetocrystalline anisotropy at this size. Because of this competition, distinct micromagnetic structures arise according to the orientation of the element edges. The epitaxial elements are of high structural quality allowing the micromagnetic behavior to be controllably modified.

©1997 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v78/p1158
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.1158
PACS: 75.70.Kw, 68.55.-a, 75.30.Gw, 75.50.Tt

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