Abstract
We have developed a vortex-core magnetic force microscope (VC MFM) for magnetic field imaging at the nanoscale for many research fields—physics, biology, materials science, and metrology. The method solves principally quantitative scanning by increasing magnetic tip durability and introducing its calibration. We show that nature itself gives us a sharp, durable, and calibrated magnetic probe. It is represented by a narrow magnetic vortex core located in the center of a ferromagnetic disk placed at the apex of a scanning tip. Such a tip offers potentially high spatial resolution—the vortex core is magnetically sharp (the vortex diameter is < 20 nm for Permalloy), but at the same time, the disk is geometrically blunt and therefore durable. The magnetic moment of the vortex core is independent of the disk diameter and can be tuned smoothly by the disk thickness. We describe here the basic properties of the VC tip, its technology, and sensitivity to the magnetic field and show its durability. The first results obtained on hard disk drive are promising—from the analysis of data tracks, the spatial resolution of the VC tip is only a bit worse than the one of the standard MFM tips. We believe that the VC tip could be a sensor of choice for magnetic field imaging for scientific areas mentioned above.
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