Eur. Phys. J. B 45, 305-309 (2005)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00190-7

Effect of grain misorientation on the stripe domains in evaporated cobalt films

¹ LPMTM (CNRS-UPR 9001), Université Paris 13, 99 Avenue J.B. Clément, 93430 Villetaneuse, France
² Département de Physique, Université Ferhat ABBAS, Sétif 19000, Algérie

Corresponding author: ^a cherif@lpmtm.univ-paris13.fr

Received: 22 November 2004
Revised: 6 April 2005
Published online: 6 July 2005

Abstract

X-ray diffraction and magnetic force microscopy techniques were used to investigate the structural and the static magnetic properties of vapor-deposited cobalt films with various thicknesses t ranging from 50 to 195 nm. Texture measurements revealed that as the thickness increases, the films become predominantly c-axis oriented. Magnetic stripe domains structure was only observed for the thicker films, with t=195, 173 and 125 nm, while such a magnetic configuration was expected for all the samples based on the theoretical studies. Since the layers present increasing c-axis misorientation when the thickness decreases, we assume that this effect can prevent the stripe domains formation. This behavior is qualitatively explained by a simple model which describes the stripe domains structure taking into account the role of a small misorientation of the anisotropy axis.