학술논문

Soft x-ray ptychography studies of nanoscale magnetic and structural correlations in thin SmCo5 films
Document Type
article
Source
Applied Physics Letters. 108(9)
Subject
Physical Sciences
Condensed Matter Physics
MSD-General
MSD-Magnetic Materials
Engineering
Technology
Applied Physics
Physical sciences
Language
Abstract
High spatial resolution magnetic x-ray spectromicroscopy at x-ray photon energies near the cobalt L3 resonance was applied to probe an amorphous 50 nm thin SmCo5 film prepared by off-axis pulsed laser deposition onto an x-ray transparent 200 nm thin Si3N4 membrane. Alternating gradient magnetometry shows a strong in-plane anisotropy and an only weak perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, which is confirmed by magnetic transmission soft x-ray microscopy images showing over a field of view of 10 μm a primarily stripe-like domain pattern but with local labyrinth-like domains. Soft x-ray ptychography in amplitude and phase contrast was used to identify and characterize local magnetic and structural features over a field of view of 1 μm with a spatial resolution of about 10 nm. There, the magnetic labyrinth domain patterns are accompanied by nanoscale structural inclusions that are primarily located in close proximity to the magnetic domain walls. Our analysis suggests that these inclusions are nanocrystalline Sm2Co17 phases with nominally in-plane magnetic anisotropy.