Micromagnetic modelling of stripe domains in thin films with a columnar microstructure

Abstract

A micromagnetic model of thin films with columnar microstructure in the form of a matrix with reduced magnetic properties and embedded columns with high aspect ratio is presented. Such microstructure is typical for some films based on rare-earth and 3d transition metal alloys, in particular for La-Co films, that were chosen as an object for our modelling. Described structural features promote an effective perpendicular magnetic anisotropy that for thick enough films leads to formation of the stripe domain pattern. Our work addresses to the problem of finding equilibrium characteristics of stripe domains for the case of infinite columnar films. Herein it is shown how width of stripe domains, remanent magnetization and energies depend on number of replicas of periodic boundary conditions and the size of modelling volume. Equilibrium values of listed quantities can be found by extrapolating obtained dependencies.