Magnetooptical Voigt effect in rippled polycrystalline Co films

The magneto-optical properties of eroded polycrystalline Co films were investigated using Kerr and Voigt magnetometry. Both techniques showed the existence of two magnetization axes, parallel and perpendicular to the ripples direction. The study on the polarization rotation of the transmitted light revealed a fine magnetic birefringence correlated to that two-axes magnetic structure. Additionally, the field depencence of that induced rotation depicted asymmetric hysteresis loops, comprising linear (Faraday) and quadratic (Voigt) dependences on the in-plane magnetic field applied to these rippled Co films. This latter contribution, depending on the spin-orbit coupling in crystalline systems, is here uncovered from the different mechanisms for reversing the magnetization along the symmetry axes of the ripples array. That dissimilarity enabled us to characterize its magnetooptical tensor with a two-fold symmetry, yielding the occurrence of magnetic birefringence in the transmitted light. This Voigt effect in uniaxially patterned Co films can be satisfactorily explained in the frame of magnetization reversal along that two-axes magnetic structure.