Micromagnetism of Epitaxial Fe(001) Elements on the Mesoscale

The size and orientation dependent micromagnetic structures of epitaxial Fe(001) thin film elements with in-plane anisotropy are reported. A transition from single domain to multidomain remanent states is observed upon reducing the element size beneath $\ensuremath{\sim}50\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$, indicating that the in-plane dipolar field becomes competitive with the magnetocrystalline anisotropy at this size. Because of this competition, distinct micromagnetic structures arise according to the orientation of the element edges. The epitaxial elements are of high structural quality allowing the micromagnetic behavior to be controllably modified.