A scanning laser microscope system to observe static and dynamic magnetic domain behavior

Scanning laser microscopes (SLMs) have been used to characterize the magnetic properties of materials for some time. The first SLM built was a purely static system capable of imaging magnetic domains. Dynamic capability was introduced with the development of the R-Theta microscope. However, this microscope utilizes a rotating drive. A scanning laser microscope has been designed to observe the dynamic behavior of domain switching during the thermomagnetic write process and the subsequent magnetization state (domain orientation) in stationary media, without the requirement for a rotating drive. It may also be used to write to the magneto-optic (MO) disk material thermomagnetically prior to imaging. Images are derived from the longitudinal and polar magneto-optic Kerr effects. In this paper, the different configurations for imaging are described and some initial images are presented.