Magnetic domain formation in lithographically defined antidot Permalloy arrays

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Abstract
The magnetic switching of a continuous Permalloy film is artificially modified by lithographically structuring an antidot array. The antidots introduce a spatially variant shape anisotropy field that competes with the intrinsic uniaxial anisotropy of the continuous film. This results in a well-defined periodic domain structure at remanence as observed by scanning Kerr microscopy, and which could be significant for high-density data storage. A micromagnetic calculation explains the structure and indicates optimum anisotropy conditions for data storage applications.