Imaging antiferromagnetic antiphase domain boundaries using magnetic Bragg diffraction phase contrast

Abstract

Manipulating magnetic domains is essential for many technological applications. Recent breakthroughs in Antiferromagnetic Spintronics brought up novel concepts for electronic device development. Imaging antiferromagnetic domains is of key importance to this field. Unfortunately, some of the basic domain types, such as antiphase domains, cannot be imaged by conventional techniques. Herein, we present a new domain projection imaging technique based on the localization of domain boundaries by resonant magnetic diffraction of coherent x rays. Contrast arises from reduction of the scattered intensity at the domain boundaries due to destructive interference effects. We demonstrate this approach by imaging antiphase domains in a collinear antiferromagnet Fe2Mo3O8, and observe evidence of domain wall interaction with a structural defect. This technique does not involve any numerical algorithms. It is fast, sensitive, produces large-scale images in a single-exposure measurement, and is applicable to a variety of magnetic domain types.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Magnetic imaging of antiferromagnetic domain walls
• Band-Mott mixing hybridizes the gap in Fe${}_2$Mo${}_3$O${}_8$
• Magnetoelectric coupling in the mixed erythrosiderite [(NH${}_4$)${}_{1-x}$K${}_x$]${}_2$[FeCl${}_5$(H${}_2$O)]
• Fresnel diffraction imaging of surface nanostructure using coherent resonant X-ray scattering
• Non-chiral 1T-TiSe2 creates circular dichroism in resonant X-ray diffraction via multipole scattering interference
• Evidence for the Alternating Next-Nearest Neighbor model in the dynamic behavior of a frustrated antiferromagnet
• Anisotropy of Antiferromagnetic Domains in a Spin-orbit Mott Insulator
• Fast reversal of Néel vectors in antiferromagnets via domain-wall motion driven by vertically injected spin currents