Quantitative analysis of the magnetic domain structure in polycrystalline La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films by magnetic force microscopy

The nanoscale magnetic domain structure of the polycrystalline La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 granular thin films was imaged with a developed magnetic force microscopy technique by simultaneously detecting both the perpendicular and in-plane components of magnetic field gradients during the same scan of the tip oscillation. The characteristics of both the perpendicular and in-plane magnetic field gradient at the grain edges or the nonmagnetic grain boundary phase for LSMO films were demonstrated and can be used to evaluate the magnetic domain structure and magnetic isolation between neighboring grains. A two dimensional signal transformation algorithm to reconstruct the in-plane magnetization distribution of the polycrystalline LSMO thin films from the measured raw MFM images with the aid of the deconvolution technique was presented. The comparison between the experimental and simulated MFM images indicates that the magnetic grains or clusters are in the single domain (SD) or multi-domain (MD) state with the magnetic moments parallel or anti-parallel to the effective magnetic field of each grain, possibly due to the need for minimizing the total energy. The quantitative interpretation of the magnetic domain structure indicates that the large magnetoresistance in the studied LSMO films is mainly due to tunnel effect and scattering of conducted electrons at the nonmagnetic grain boundary phase related to the different configurations of magnetic domain states between neighboring grains.