Spin reorientation transition of magnetite (001)

We have imaged the rearrangement of the magnetic domains on magnetite (001) when crossing the spin reorientation transition and the Verwey transition with nanometer resolution. By means of spin-polarized low-energy electron microscopy we have monitored the change in the easy axes lowering the temperature through both transitions in remanence. The spin reorientation transition occurs in two steps: initial nucleation and growth of domains with a new surface magnetic orientation is followed by a smooth evolution.We thank Dr. A. T. N'Diaye for his support with the scripts for the color representation of the magnetization. This research was partly supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under Projects No. MAT2011-52477-C5-2-P, No. MAT2012-38045-C04-01, and No. MAT2015-64110-C2-1-P. G.S.P. and R.B. acknowledge funding from the Austrian Science Fund START prize Y 847-N20 and Project No. P24925-N20. Experiments were performed at the Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Scientific User Facilities Division, of the U. S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. L.M.-G. thanks the MINECO for an FPI contract with reference Contract No. BES-2013-063396. R.B. acknowledges a stipend from the TU Wien and Austrian Science Fund doctoral college Solids4Fun (Project No. W1243). A.M. thanks the support of the Spanish Ministry of Education through Project No. PRX14/00307.Peer Reviewe