Observation of stripe mobility in a dipolar frustrated ferromagnet.
We have discovered two novel aspects of the stripe-domain to paramagnetic transition in perpendicularly magnetized Fe films on Cu(100). First, the width of the stripes carrying oppositely oriented spins decreases, close to the transition temperature, with a power law. Second, in a small temperature interval close to the transition temperature, the stripes--which form stationary patterns at low temperatures--become mobile. Various theoretical works have predicted stripe mobility in similar frustrated systems but no direct proof of this phenomenon has been reported so far.
Portmann
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Laboratorium für Festkörperphysik, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
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Pescia
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