Metastable Domain Structures of Ferromagnetic Microstructures Observed by Soft X-Ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism Microscopy

The benefit of combining soft X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and photoelectron microscopy is demonstrated by applying this combination to the observation of the magnetic domain structures of rectangular microstructures. The size and aspect-ratio dependence of the transformation of the domain structures by magnetic field pulses is investigated. The switching mechanism, which is very important in the application to magnetic storage, is discussed in terms of transformation between saturated and vortex domain structures.