Abstract
The domain structure in in-plane magnetized Fe/Ni/W(110) films is investigated using spin-polarized low-energy electron microscopy. A novel transition of the domain wall shape from a zigzaglike pattern to straight is observed as a function of the film thickness, which is triggered by the transition of the domain wall type from the out-of-plane chiral wall to the in-plane Néel wall. The contribution of the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction to the wall energy is proposed to explain the transition of the domain wall shape, which is supported by Monte Carlo simulations.
Highlights
The formation of magnetic domain structure is a result of the interplay among competing magnetic interactions including exchange, magnetic anisotropy, dipole interaction and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI)
The experiments were performed using the spin-polarized low-energy electron microscopy (SPLEEM) at the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM) of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [29]
SPLEEM was used to generate real space magnetic contrast images of the surface magnetization vector in ultrathin single-crystalline Fe/Ni bilayers grown on a W(110) crystal, where the Ni thickness is fixed at 15 monolayers (ML) and Fe thickness (d ) ranges from 3.3 ML to 5.2 ML
Summary
The formation of magnetic domain structure is a result of the interplay among competing magnetic interactions including exchange, magnetic anisotropy, dipole interaction and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). It was widely thought that the lowest-energy domain wall spin structure is the in-plane Néel wall, i.e. the magnetization in the wall rotates within the film plane, because it minimizes the dipole energy penalty [1] This is in sharp contrast to perpendicularly magnetized systems where the magnetization within a wall may rotate as a helical spin spiral (Bloch-type), cycloidal spin spiral (Néel-type) or a mixture of the two [22]. A novel type of chiral out-of-plane domain wall has been observed in ultrathin in-plane magnetized systems as a result of the interplay between a significant in-plane uniaxial anisotropy and a weak effective anisotropy [23], where the magnetic chirality is stabilized by the DMI [24,25]. This picture is reproduced by Monte Carlo simulations, and these results provide a way to control the domain shape in ultrathin inplane magnetized systems
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