X-ray resonant magnetic scattering study of magnetic stripe domains in a-GdFe thin films

X-ray resonant magnetic scattering (XRMS) has been used to investigate the structure of magnetic stripe domain patterns in thin amorphous GdFe films. Under the influence of a perpendicular magnetic field, the scattered intensity displays a smooth transition from a structure factor of correlated stripes to the form factor of isolated domains. We derive a quite general expression that relates the total scattered intensity of XRMS to the absolute value of the magnetization. Furthermore, we compare our results for the domain period with domain theory. We obtain good agreement for prealigned stripes, but disorder tends to lead to an overestimation of the period measured with XRMS.