Magnetic force microscopy of a CoCr thin film

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Abstract
We present high‐resolution magnetic force microscopy (MFM) images of a Co80Cr20 film with a thickness of 230 nm. We clearly observe a stripe domain structure with a domain width of 220 nm, the highest resolution of a periodic magnetic structure measured by MFM to this date, by measuring forces as small as 0.1 nN. The micromagnetic structure is compared to the morphology of the sample, which consists of vertical columns with an average cross section of about 40×60 nm2. The average surface roughness of this film did not exceed 12 nm on a 1‐μm lateral scale. A magnetic fine structure of typically 50 nm width and more than 200 nm length is observed. Theoretical calculations of force traces are in reasonable agreement with experiment. A nonuniform sample magnetization, correlated to the morphology, has to be assumed to simulate the observed fine structure of force traces. Calculated images characteristically depend on the effective domain structure of the last 500 nm of the tip.

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