Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 27: Micro- and Nanostructured Magnetic Materials II

MA 27.3: Talk

Thursday, March 29, 2007, 15:45–16:00, H22

Imaging Switching Behavior of Magnetic Nanostructures by resonant X-Ray Holography — •Christian Günther¹, Stefan Eisebitt¹, Olav Hellwig², Andreas Menzel¹, Florin Radu¹, William Schlotter^3,4, Manfred Albrecht⁵, Jan Lüning⁴, and Wolfgang Eberhardt¹ — ¹BESSY m.b.H., Albert-Einstein-Str.15, 12489 Berlin, Germany — ²Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, California 95210, USA — ³SSRL, SLAC, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA — ⁴Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4090, USA — ⁵Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany

We report on studies of the switching behavior of magnetic nanostructures via x-ray spectro-holography. On the basis of a coherent scattering experiment and using a nanostructured mask, it is possible to couple a reference beam to the object wave, which allows to solve the phase problem in a holographic approach. By scattering resonantly at the Co L edge we exploit XMCD contrast in order to image the switching behavior of magnetic multilayers on polystyrene spheres of 58 nm diameter. The magnetic caps on the spheres form exchange isolated magnetic islands with perpendicular anisotropy. The magnetic state of each nanosphere is imaged holographically as a function of applied field strength as well as of the direction of the applied field with respect to the anisotropy axis. We observe a reduction of the switching field with increasing included field angle. Furthermore, we find evidence for dipolar interactions between the nanoparticles.