Barry L. Petersen, Andreas Bauer, Gereon Meyer, Tristan Crecelius, and Günter Kaindl

During this year spent in Berlin as a Humboldt Fellow working in the group of Günter Kaindl, a new magneto-optic imaging device was created for probing magnetic samples with wavelengths below the resolution limit.

The figure on the left shows the first results of our new instrument. It is an image of a magneto-optical disk taken with the newly-developed magnetic-sensitive Sagnac Interferometer/Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope. Both topographic and magnetic images are shown. The terraces are approximately 1.5 micrometers wide. To our knowledge, no other researchers have been able to create such images of MO-disks with SNOM in reflection.

The instrument may be employed to obtain a better understaning of magnetic properties of surfaces with resolution on the order of tens of nanometers. In addition to providing information about magnetism in general, such studies might help in extending the current borders of magnetic storage technology.