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Published Online: 10 February 2016
Accepted: January 2016

Scanning magnetoresistive microscopy: An advanced characterization tool for magnetic nanosystems

Review of Scientific Instruments 87, 023703 (2016); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4941292
D. Mitin1, a), M. Grobis2, and M. Albrecht1
more...View Affiliations
  • 1Institute of Physics, University of Augsburg, 86159 Augsburg, Germany
  • 2HGST, A Western Digital Company, San Jose, California 95135, USA

  • a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail:

Abstract
An advanced scanning magnetoresistive microscopy (SMRM) — a robust magnetic imaging and probing technique — will be presented, which utilizes state-of-the-art recording heads of a hard disk drive as sensors. The spatial resolution of modern tunneling magnetoresistive sensors is nowadays comparable to the more commonly used magnetic force microscopes. Important advantages of SMRM are the ability to detect pure magnetic signals directly proportional to the out-of-plane magnetic stray field, negligible sensor stray fields, and the ability to apply local bipolar magnetic field pulses up to 10 kOe with bandwidths from DC up to 1 GHz. Moreover, the SMRM can be further equipped with a heating stage and external magnetic field units. The performance of this method and corresponding best practices are demonstrated by presenting various examples, including a temperature dependent recording study on hard magnetic L10 FeCuPt thin films, imaging of magnetic vortex states in an in-plane magnetic field, and their controlled manipulation by applying local field pulses.

Acknowledgments

This work was partially financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the frame of the International Research Training Group GRK1215 “Materials and Concepts for Advanced Interconnects and Nanosystems”. The authors would like to thank D. Nissen and M. Lindorf (University of Augsburg, Germany) for sample preparation and SEM measurements, D. Karnaushenko (IFW Dresden, Germany) and M. Weinl (University of Augsburg, Germany) for valuable discussions, and R. Bergshoef (FenS, Netherlands) for providing lubricant.

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