Surface Roughness Influence on Néel-, Crosstie, and Bloch-Type Charged Zigzag Magnetic Domain Walls in Nanostructured Fe Films

Materials (Basel). 2020 Sep 24;13(19):4249. doi: 10.3390/ma13194249.

Abstract

Charged magnetic domain walls have been visualized in soft magnetic nanostructured Fe thin films under both static and dynamic conditions. A transition in the core of these zigzagged magnetic walls from Néel-type to Bloch-type through the formation of crosstie walls has been observed. This transition in charged zigzagged walls was not previously shown experimentally in Fe thin films. For film thicknesses t < 30 nm, Néel-type cores are present, while at t ≈ 33 nm, walls with crosstie cores are observed. At t > 60 nm, Bloch-type cores are observed. Along with the visualization of these critical parameters, the dependence on the film thickness of the characteristic angle and length of the segments of the zigzagged walls has been observed and analyzed. After measuring the bistable magneto-optical behavior, the values of the wall nucleation magnetic field and the surface roughness of the films, an energetic fit to these nucleation values is presented.

Keywords: charged domain walls; magnetic thin films; magnetic wall energy; magneto-optic; pulsed laser deposition (PLD); roughness energy; scanning tunneling microscopy (STM).