Extended Data Fig. 3: Comparison of magneto-optical Faraday and magnetic force microscopy for studying laser-induced magnetic nanotextures.
Top: In Faraday microscopy, linearly polarized light passes through a polarizer, the magnetic sample, a 10× objective, and an analyzer before being detected by a CCD camera. Circularly polarized laser pulses (σ) induce nanotextured magnetic domains in the sample. Laser-induced magnetic domains induce Faraday rotation of the light polarization, producing a magneto-optical image (right). Bottom: In MFM, a magnetized tip scans above the sample surface to detect magnetic stray fields coming from the nanotextured domains, yielding a high-resolution MFM image (right). Representative magneto-optical and MFM images illustrate the differences in spatial resolution between the two techniques. The scale bar is 5 µm.
