Ptychographic imaging and micromagnetic modeling of thermal melting of nanoscale magnetic domains in antidot lattices

Abstract

Antidot lattices are potential candidates to act as bit patterned media for data storage as they are able to trap nanoscale magnetic domains between two adjacent holes. Here, we demonstrate the combination of micromagnetic modeling and x-ray microscopy. Detailed simulation of these systems can only be achieved by micromagnetic modeling that takes thermal effects into account. For this purpose, a Landau–Lifshitz–Bloch approach is used here. The calculated melting of magnetic domains within the antidot lattice is reproduced experimentally by x-ray microscopy. Furthermore, we compare conventional scanning transmission x-ray microscopy with resolution enhanced ptychography. Hence, we achieve a resolution of 13 nm. The results demonstrate that ptychographic imaging can also recover magnetic contrast in the presence of a strong topological variation and is generally applicable toward magnetic samples requiring ultimate resolution.