Apertureless scanning near-field magneto-optical microscopy of magnetic multilayers.

We imaged magnetic domains in Pt/Co/Pt multilayers using an apertureless scanning near-field optical microscope operating in reflection mode. As the magneto-optical effects are weak for this kind of structure, a polarization modulation technique with a photoelastic modulator was used to reveal the contrast between magnetic domains. In the case of a Pt/Co/Pt trilayer structure, a strong improvement in lateral resolution is observed compared with far-field magneto-optical images and good sensitivity is achieved. In the case of a Pt/[Co/Pt]Pt multilayer structure, stripe domains of 200 nm width could be resolved, in good agreement with images obtained by magnetic force microscopy on the same structure.