Persistent Uncorrelated Magnetic Domains in Fe/Si Multilayers and their suppression by incorporating 11B4C

This study investigates magnetic domains in Fe/Si and Fe/Si + B4C multilayers using spin flip off-specular polarized neutron reflectometry. The results show that Fe/Si multilayers exhibit pronounced spin flip off-specular scattering originating from magnetic domains that are uncorrelated out of plane. With increasing external magnetic field the domains progressively coalesce and their magnetization rotates toward alignment with the applied field, approaching a homogeneous magnetic state at higher fields. In contrast, Fe/Si + B4C multilayers exhibit no detectable spin flip off-specular scattering already at low fields, indicating that the multilayer reaches magnetic saturation at significantly lower applied fields. The scattering patterns are interpreted using distorted wave Born approximation simulations in BornAgain, enabled by our added code for simulating magnetic domains and magnetic ordering. To further probe the magnetic behavior, low-energy mu+SR measurements were performed, representing the first mu+SR investigation of polarizing neutron optics multilayers. Together with comparison to previously reported VSM data, these measurements provide insight into the magnetic behavior across short range, medium range, and long range length scales. The results show that incorporating approximately 15 vol.% B4C makes the magnetic configuration highly responsive to external magnetic fields, with clear sensitivity to both in-plane and out-of-plane field geometries. These results show that B4C suppresses magnetic domains and spin flip off-specular scattering, improving Fe/Si coatings for neutron polarization optics in regards to off-specular scattering, and other applications requiring easy magnetic manipulation.