STRIPE DOMAINS MORPHOLOGY VERSUS LAYERS THICKNESS IN COPT MULTILAYERS

The domain morphology in CoPt multilayers has been investigated by mea ns of magnetic force microscopy for a broad range of thickness paramet ers. Following hard-axis saturation, complex closure domains, isolated reversed domains, and segmented and fully developed stripe patterns a re clearly identified down to stripe widths of the order of 50 nm. Pen ding full numerical simulations, the stripe width behavior versus Co a nd Pt thicknesses has been confronted to the predictions of a purely m agnetostatic model. The data are consistent with the existence of a si ngle and physically realistic characteristic length, which, however, i s viewed as mostly casual. Likely reasons are discussed. (C) 1997 Amer ican Institute of Physics.