Stripes in thin ferromagnetic films with out-of-plane anisotropy

Abstract

We examine the T = 0 phase diagram of a thin ferromagnetic film with a strong out-of-plane anisotropy (e.g. Co/Pt multilayers) in the vicinity of the reorientation phase transition. The phase diagram in the anisotropy-applied field plane is universal in the limit in which the film thickness is the shortest length scale. It contains uniform fully magnetized and canted phases, as well as periodically nonuniform states: weakly modulated spin-density waves and strongly modulated stripes. We determine the boundaries of metastability of these phases and point out the existence of a critical point at which the difference between the SDW and striped phases vanishes. Out-of-plane magnetization curves exhibit hysteresis loops caused by the coexistence of one or more phases. Additionally, we study the effect of a system edge on the orientation of nearby stripes. We compare our results with recent experiments.

Metastable tilted states in anisotropic ferromagnets in external magnetic fields

“…In this case, such "mixed" order implies extremely novel "tilted" phases, in which the magnetization M makes an angle between zero and 180 degrees with the externally applied H. These phases can be both stable and metastable. This phenomenology has previously been predicted by Tretiakov et al [3].…”

“…For a cubic ferromagnetic crystal we find that if the external field is along one of the cubic axes (e.g., (100)), a continuous tilting transition is possible. The universality class of the transition is again that of the three-dimensional XY model, and the longitudinal susceptibility is again given by (3).…”

Asymmetric Domain Nucleation and Unusual Magnetization Reversal in Ultrathin Co Films with Perpendicular Anisotropy

“…Here we outline the general results of such a phase diagram [24]. We pay particular attention to the metastable states, as they are important for understanding the magnetization reversal.…”

Magnetic Noise in Structured Hard Magnets

“…Evidently, the magnetization averaged over the small active Hall volume is representative of the magnetization of the whole film. Comparisons with loops calculated by Clarke et al [13] are used to associate values of Q of 1.06, 0.94, and 0.69, respectively, with the three samples.…”