Domain Walls (IMAGE)

University of Copenhagen

Domain Walls

Caption

In TbFeO3 researchers discovered an unusual spin order for the magnetic field where the change in spin direction along a line of atoms occurs suddenly. There is a formation of what is known as a soliton domain wall. The size of the spin-up (or down) domains is approx. 20 nanometer, while the domain walls are a few tenths of nanometer, which is a very unusual combination. In the lower figure one of these domain walls is illustrated, whose sharpness is caused by the large amount of congruent diffraction data for the so-called candlestick figure. The upper figure shows how these domain walls can appear in more traditional materials, where the wall is thicker and the spin rotates slowly from up-mode to down-mode from left to right.

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Niels Bohr Institute

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Niels Bohr Institute

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