Vedmedenko, E. Y., Oepen, H.-P., Ghazali, A., Lévy, J. C. S., Lévy, J. C. S., Kirschner, J.
Magnetic microstructure of the spin-reorientation transition: A computer experiment
Physical Review Letters 84, (25),pp 5884-5887 (2000)
The scenario of the spin reorientation in two-dimensional films within first-order anisotropy approximation is theoretically studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The magnetic microstructure is investigated as a function of the ratio of the perpendicular anisotropy energy to the dipolar one. If the anisotropy dominates, out-of-plane domains will be found while in-plane vortices appear for a vanishing anisotropy. In the range of comparable anisotropy and dipolar energies a complex domain pattern evolves yielding a continuous transition between the two structures. The structure with equally distributed magnetic moment orientation is stable at the point where anisotropy and dipolar energies cancel each other.
ki-2000-m02