Double magnetic reorientation transition in thin garnet films

Thin garnet films with perpendicular anisotropy are enjoying renewed attention in the context of research on heavy metal/ferromagnetic insulator bilayer devices with tunable electric and magnetic properties. We show that two temperature-induced magnetic orientation transitions observed in such films have different origins. One transition occurs between the uniform, in-plane magnetized state and the stripe domain state, and is governed by the bulk material properties. The other occurs between the domain state and the perpendicular magnetized uniform state, and is governed by the physics of domain nucleation.