Domain Investigation by the Conventional Bitter Pattern Technique with Digital Image Processing

In the cases of soft magnetic materials or complex domain configurations, investigations of the domain structure by the conventional Bitter pattern technique are generally difficult. It is demonstrated in this paper, referring to the examples of domain images of thin permalloy films and the basal surface of bulk cobalt single crystals, that this problem can be overcome by the application of digital image processing (DIP) system. In particular, the visibility limit in domain observation was expanded by an order of magnitude and high quality domain images could be obtained. Improvements over earlier results were achieved.