Imprinting of stochastic magnetic domain configurations by fluctuating interlayer coupling

Abstract

Competing interaction within magnetic materials leads to the formation of complex magnetic domain configurations such as stripe domains, labyrinthine domains, magnetic bubbles, and skyrmions, which are fingerprints of different magnetic materials. An effective tailoring of these competing interactions and the resultant magnetic domain configurations by extrinsically means is of current interest. Through depositing an interfacially asymmetric Ta/CoFeB/MgO/Ta multilayer on a rare-earth-doped yttrium iron garnet of composition SmLu: YIG film, we show that the magnetic domain configurations from the bottom SmLu: YIG film can be partly imprinted onto the top Ta/CoFeB/MgO/Ta multilayer. The formation of stochastic domain configurations, such as labyrinthine domains, parallel stripe domains, and magnetic bubbles in the Ta/CoFeB/MgO/Ta multilayer, is jointly studied by using polar magneto-optical Kerr effect microscope and anomalous Hall effect measurements. The underlying physics is attributed to the fluctuating interlayer dipole–dipole interaction that results in the partial imprinting, which could substantially modify the intrinsic magnetism of the top Ta/CoFeB/MgO/Ta multilayer and leading to the formation of stochastic domain configurations. Our results provide an effective approach for tailoring the competing interaction in magnetic materials and for application scenarios in which the formation of stochastic domain configurations is required.