Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
The relationship between the magnetic and crystalline microstructure of SrRu03 thin films is analyzed using transmission electron microscopy. Regions with a stripe magnetic domain structure in different orientations are observed in Lorentz imaging mode when the specimens are zero-field-cooled through the ferromagnetic transition temperature, Tc ≈ 150K. The different orientations of the stripe regions correspond to different crystallographic domains as determined by electron diffraction and magnetic image contrast; all of the six possible orientations of the orthorhombic SrRuO3 structure grown epitaxially on a SrTiO3 cubic substrate are identified. The results show that the uniaxial anisotropy indicated for these multi(crystal)domain films is the same as that determined for single crystal films by bulk magnetization measurements, and is therefore primarily magnetocrystalline in nature.