Domain size, closure domains, and the importance of magnetostriction in magnetite
Abstract
Previous micromagnetic calculations invoking magnetostatic, exchange and crystalline anisotropy energies predict about an order of magnitude more domains in magnetite than have experimentally been observed. Domains observed on magnetite by the magneto-optic Kerr effect are of similar size as previously observed ones by the Bitter technique. Simple but quite accurate domain calculations show that for rectangular parallelepipeds of magnetite it is the closure-four domain configuration that should be of lowest energy for all multidomain grain sizes unless magnetostrictive energies are considered. For the observed domain pattern it is shown that the domains themselves must carry significant magnetoelastic energies.
- Publication:
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Earth and Planetary Science Letters
- Pub Date:
- January 1991
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 1991E&PSL.102...71W