New technique enables magnetic patterns to be mapped in 3D
Mapping of the captured magnetisation domains (right, red-blue patterns) in a sample 20 nanometres thick that had been wound in two layers into a tube. The tube has a diameter of 5 microns and a height of 50 microns. © F. Kronast/HZB
An international collaboration has succeeded in using synchrotron light to detect and record the complex 3D magnetisation in wound magnetic layers. This technique could be important in the development of devices that are highly sensitive to magnetic fields, such as in medical diagnostics for example. Their results are published now in Nature Communications.
3D structures in materials and biological samples can be investigated today using X-ray tomography. This is done by recording images layer-by-layer and assembling them on a computer into a three-dimensional mapping. But so far there has been no comparable technique for imaging 3D magnetic structures on nm length scales. Now teams from HZB and the Institut für Festkörperphysik / Technische Universität Dresden in collaboration with research partners from institutions in California (1) have developed a technique with which this is possible.
Mapping of rolled-up magnetic samples
They studied the magnetisation in rolled-up tubular magnetic nanomembranes (nickel or cobalt-palladium) about two layers thick. To obtain a 3D mapping of the magnetisation in the tubes, the samples were illuminated with circularly polarized X-rays. Using the X-ray microscope at the Advanced Light Source and the X-ray Photoemission Electron Microscopy (XPEEM) beamline at BESSY II, the samples were slightly rotated for each new image so that a series of 2D images was created. “The polarised light penetrated the magnetic layers from different angles. Using XPEEM, we were not only able to measure the magnetic features at the surface, but also obtained additional information from the “shadow”, explains Florian Kronast, who is responsible for the XPEEM beamline at HZB.
3D reconstruction of magnetic patterns
In the end, the physicists were successful in reconstructing the magnetic features on the computer in three dimensions.
“These samples displayed structures not smaller than 75 nanometres. But with this method we should be able to see even smaller structures and obtain a resolution of 20 nanometres”, explains Florian Kronast. However, so far only electron holography could be considered for mapping magnetic domains of three-dimensional objects at the nanometre scale. This required very complicated sample preparation and the magnetisation could only be indirectly determined through the resulting distribution of the magnetic field. “Our process enables you to map the magnetisation in directly in 3D. Knowledge of the magnetisation is prerequisite for improving the sensitivity of magnetic field detectors.”
Sensors for weak magnetic fields
The new method could be of interest to anyone involved with extremely small magnetic features within small volumes, such as those developing more sensitive devices for medical imaging, for example. Procedures like magnetoencephalography depend on externally detecting very weak magnetic fields created by the electrical activity of individual nerve cells – using appropriately sensitive detectors.
To the publication: Retrieving spin textures on curved magnetic thin films with full-field soft X-ray microscopies. Robert Streubel, Florian Kronast,Peter Fischer, Dula Parkinson, Oliver G. Schmidt & Denys Makarov. Nature Communications 6,7612, doi:10.1038/ncomms8612
(1): Advanced Light Source/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Santa Cruz
- BESSY II: High-resolution insights into individual biomolecules and catalystsVery small biological samples and even individual biomolecules can now be examined under near-physiological conditions with high confidence at the BESSY II infrared beamline with a newly validated and improved technique: The nanoscale infrared spectroscopy (s-SNOM) with ultra-thin silicon-based membranes. An international team demonstrated after an initial proof of concept, that high-resolution (a few tens of nanometres) nano-IR measurements reliably match expected far-field IR spectra in an aqueous environment. This methodological advance provides a solid foundation for studying biomaterials or observing catalytic processes in a liquid environment.
- New method shows how molecular switches are influenced by their neighborsResearchers at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Helmholtz Centre Berlin (HZB) have, for the first time, been able to directly observe how the environment surrounding a molecular switch influences its electronic structure. Molecular switches are molecules that can be switched between two states by external influences such as changes in temperature—similar to a switch with the positions »On« and »Off«. Such molecules are being investigated as potential building blocks for future data storage devices or sensor materials. Using magnetic-field-dependent terahertz spectroscopy, the researchers have now, for the first time, been able to distinguish whether neighbouring molecules in a material are in the same or different states. The results have been published in the journal »Angewandte Chemie International Edition«.
- BESSY II is back in operation after maintenance shutdownOn 7 September 2026, BESSY II was set into operation after a four-week shutdown. BESSY II is scheduled to resume full user operation on 22 September.