Three dimensional magnetic textures studied by angular dependent transmission X-ray magnetic microscopy

Abstract

Transmission X-ray microscopy combined with circular magnetic dichroism allows to get insight in the 3D magnetic configuration of thinfilms or multilayers as reported in our previous works. In order to advance towards the development of 3D magnetic tomography as a tool to resolve the magnetization in relatively complex magnetic structures, we acquired images at different angles of incidence and measured their X-ray dichroic contrast. we fabricated trilayers, consisting of two permalloy (Py) films having a Cu spacer in between, to ivestigate the textures of the two Py layers. As shown in the figure, at oblique angles of incidence, white (top) and dark (bottom) triangular areas visible in image (a) that invert contrast in (c). They are due to Landau domains at the top Py layer which are superimposed to the stripe domains of the thicker Py layer at the bottom, which are most evident in image (b). This interpretation is sustained by the results of micromagnetic calculations displayed in (d) and (e).