Influence of structural disorder on magnetic domain formation in perpendicular anisotropy thin films

M. S. Pierce,1,2,3 J. E. Davies,4,5 J. J. Turner,6,7 K. Chesnel,8 E. E. Fullerton,9,10 J. Nam,1 R. Hailstone,11 S. D. Kevan,6 J. B. Kortright,12 Kai Liu,4 L. B. Sorensen,3 B. R. York,13 and O. Hellwig14 1School of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York 14623, USA 2Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA 3Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA 4Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA 5Advanced Technology Group, NVE Corporation, Eden Prairie, Minnesota 55344, USA 6Department of Physics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA 7SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA 8Department of Physics, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602 9Department of Electrical and Computational Engineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA 10Center for Magnetic Recording Research, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA 11Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York 14623, USA 12Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA 13Materials Laboratory, HGST, a Western Digital Company, San Jose, California 95119, USA 14San Jose Research Center, HGST, a Western Digital Company, San Jose, California 95135, USA (Received 8 January 2013; revised manuscript received 13 May 2013; published 24 May 2013)