The thickness dependence of the magnetic domain structure in cobalt monocrystals studied by SEM

Abstract

The type-I magnetic contrast in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to observe the magnetic domain structure on the basal planes of cobalt monocrystals. The study of the thickness dependence of the domain structure was carried out on a series of cobalt single crystals in the thickness range 1.9 mm down to 10 μm. Because of the problems in imaging magnetic domains for the smaller thicknesses used, and the complex character of the domain structure in thick crystals, digital image processing was applied to the original SEM images for their restoration, enhancement and analysis. The limit of resolution of type-I magnetic contrast in cobalt monocrystals has been evaluated, and the statistical distributions of the magnetic domain widths have been calculated.