Anisotropy characterization in amorphous ribbons from the stress dependence of compliance

The authors describe the theoretical basis and procedure for a method to characterize anisotropy that makes use of the observation that the reorientation of spontaneous magnetostriction with applied tensile stress is the source of a magnetoelastic component of the mechanical compliance of a ferromagnet. Features of the appearance and magnitude of this component and the manner in which it varies with increasing stress can be correlated with specific distributions of domain orientations in the unstressed state. Salient aspects of the expected apparition of these features are catalogued against systematically varied, ad hoc assumptions of initial domain orientations and distributions. Identification of catalogued features in the experimentally determined stress dependence of compliance of a real sample is interpreted to imply the existence of the correlated anisotropy. Since the experimental arrangement is comparatively simple, particularly in regard to sample preparation, such correlation allows for rapid characterization of the anisotropy and permits real-time observation of its variation with thermal, magnetic, and other treatments