Tip-induced artifacts in magnetic force microscopy images

Useful sample information can be extracted from the dissipation in frequency modulation atomic force microscopy due to its correlation to important material properties. It has been recently shown that artifacts can often be observed in the dissipation channel, due to the spurious mechanical resonances of the atomic force microscope instrument when the oscillation frequency of the force sensor changes. In this paper, we present another source of instrumental artifacts specific to magnetic force microscopy (MFM), which is attributed to a magnetization switching happening at the apex of MFM tips. These artifacts can cause a misinterpretation of the domain structure in MFM images of magnetic samples. VC 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4776669]