Easy-axis rotation in meteoritic iron probed by photoelectron emission microscope (PEEM)

Photoelectron emission microscope (PEEM) with magnetic linear dichroism (MLD) is applied for reading magnetic information of meteoritic iron. We observed the ferromagnetic domain image on the bcc-FeNi lamella in Gibeon iron meteorite through MLD effect. The easy-axis in the observed magnetic domain aligns [1 1 0] or [ 1 ¯ 1 ¯ 0 ] , and such behavior is unfavorable in synthetic bcc-FeNi system usually showing the easy-axis of 〈1 0 0〉. This easy-axis rotation can be reasonably explained by induced magnetic anisotropy. It suggests that bcc-FeNi lamella has grown along 〈1 1 0〉 direction with extremely slow developing process.