Magnetocrystalline and configurational anisotropies in Fe nanostructures

Arrays of single-crystal Fe micron and submicron squares and disks, have been fabricated using a focused ion beam apparatus from a film epitaxially grown on MgO. The hysteresis loops of the patterned areas differ from those of the continuous film as a consequence of the different reversal determined by the lateral confinement of the Fe film. By means of modulated field magneto-optical anisometry measurements we studied the symmetry and the strength of the overall anisotropy. For the smaller square elements we observed a higher-order term in the overall anisotropy with eightfold symmetry arising from the configurational contribution. 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved