Effects of interdot dipole coupling in mesoscopic epitaxial Fe[100] dot arrays

The domain structure and the coercivity of epitaxial Fe[100] circular dot arrays of different diameters and separations have been studied using magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and focused magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE). The MFM images of the 1 /spl mu/m diameter single domain dot arrays show direct evidence of strong interdot dipole coupling when the separation is reduced down to 0.1 /spl mu/m. The coercivity of the dots is also found to be dependent on the separation, indicating the effect of the interdot dipole coupling on the magnetization reversal process.