ON THE SURFACE DOMAIN STRUCTURE OF COBALT MONOCRYSTALS

摘要

The surface domain Structure on the basal planes of bulk cobalt monocrystals is studied by the type-I magnetic contrast in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the classical Bitter technique using optical microscope. It was observed that the surface domain pattern becomes more and more complicated with increasing crystal thickness. The fact that type-I magnehc contrast is easily observable means that the surface domain structure of cobalt (at room temperature) is substantially determined by its uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy perpendicular to the basal surface. From the Bitter patterns it can be concluded that regions with a certain in-plane magnetization component are also present on the crystal surface. As a consequence, the magnetization at the basal surface of bulk cobalt monocrystals is generally tilted away from the surface normal.