Competing magnetic anisotropies in obliquely deposited thin permalloy film

Distribution of the magnetic anisotropy in thin film prepared by thermal vacuum oblique deposition of permalloy with small off-normal angle of incident in the presence of an external magnetic field has been studied by ferromagnetic resonance technique. On local area of the sample, a mutual compensation of near orthogonal in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropies induced by oblique deposition and by applied magnetic field has been found. Moreover, in addition to the uniaxial (twofold) magnetic anisotropy, fourfold and sixfold magnetic anisotropies have been observed in the sample. To explain the obtained high-order anisotropies, we assumed that the sample has exchange coupled adjacent regions or phases with different parameters of magnetic anisotropy. The results of the micromagnetic analysis of a two-layer model of the sample confirm the hypothesis.