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Magnetic properties of highly magnetostrictive amorphous glass-coated microwires are strongly correlated to the presence of a glass coating that introduces a spatially inhomogeneous stress field distribution. We investigate the influence of mechanical stresses on the inclination of magnetic domain walls in magnetic microwires. Magneto-optical Kerr effect imaging is used to compare the tilted orientation of the domain wall shape in as-cast and annealed microwires. Angular dependencies of magnetization loops measured by alternating gradient field magnetometry reveal that the change of domain wall tilting with annealing is related to the decrease of magnetic anisotropy with axial orientation. Finally, micromagnetic simulations are used to show that sufficiently high uniaxial magnetic anisotropy gives rise to the presence of observed charged domain walls with tilted orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The magnetooptical contrast on microwires qualitatively changes with rotations of polarizers. • Axially magnetized cylinders may give three types of magnetooptical contrasts. • The presence of a glass coat remarkable reduces a visible portion of a surface. Magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) imaging is a versatile technique for probing a surface magnetization of magnetic materials. Here, we investigate the influence of the polarizers' rotation on the resulting magnetooptical contrast of thin magnetic wires with cylindrical geometry. Employing MOKE microscopy, we image the magnetooptical contrast change and quantify the contribution of the spatially curved cylindrical surface to the overall magnetic contrast. The calculated magnetooptical contrast difference for various extinction angles between polarizer and analyzer provide an estimation of the surface magnetization orientation at curved surfaces. The magnetooptical analysis scheme can be extended to other non-planar magnetic surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]