Controlling of magnetic domain structure by sputtering films on tilted substrates

•Magnetic domain structure can be controlled by depositing on tilted substrates.•Ferromagnetic resonance shows that perpendicular anisotropy was increased.•The changing of perpendicular anisotropy was explained by self-shading effect. In this paper, we investigated the magnetic domain structure evolution in nickel (Ni) and permalloy (Fe19Ni81) films deposited on tilted substrates. It is found that the magnetic domain structure could be controlled from large in-plane domains to stripe-like domains, and then bubble-like domains in the films at the same thickness by just changing the oblique angle of the substrate. The angle dependence of ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements was used to quantitatively analyze the changing of magnetic properties with different tilted angle. We demonstrated that the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of the film was enhanced by increasing the tilted angle of the substrate. The origin of the enhancement of perpendicular anisotropy was also discussed.