Magnetic films on nanoperforated templates: a route towards percolated perpendicular media

New Dimension in Magnetism and Superconductivity: 3D and Curvilinear Nanoarchitectures

Traditionally, the primary field, where curvature has been at the heart of research, is the theory of general relativity. In recent studies, however, the impact of curvilinear geometry enters various disciplines, ranging from solid-state physics over soft-matter physics, chemistry, and biology to mathematics, giving rise to a plethora of emerging domains such as curvilinear nematics, curvilinear studies of cell biology, curvilinear semiconductors, superfluidity, optics, 2D van der Waals materials, plasmonics, magnetism, and superconductivity. Here, the state of the art is summarized and prospects for future research in curvilinear solid-state systems exhibiting such fundamental cooperative phenomena as ferromagnetism, antiferromagnetism, and superconductivity are outlined. Highlighting the recent developments and current challenges in theory, fabrication, and characterization of curvilinear micro- and nanostructures, special attention is paid to perspective research directions entailing new physics and to their strong application potential. Overall, the perspective is aimed at crossing the boundaries between the magnetism and superconductivity communities and drawing attention to the conceptual aspects of how extension of structures into the third dimension and curvilinear geometry can modify existing and aid launching novel functionalities. In addition, the perspective should stimulate the development and dissemination of research and development oriented techniques to facilitate rapid transitions from laboratory demonstrations to industry-ready prototypes and eventual products.

Correlation of magnetic and magnetoresistive properties of nanoporous Co/Pd thin multilayers fabricated on anodized TiO2 templates

In this study, we consider a technological approach to obtain a high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of the Co/Pd multilayers deposited on nanoporous TiO₂ templates of different types of surface morphology. It is found that the use of templates with homogeneous and smoothed surface relief, formed on silicon wafers, ensures conservation of perpendicular anisotropy of the deposited films inherent in the continuous multilayers. Also, their magnetic hardening with doubling of the coercive field is observed. However, inhomogeneous magnetic ordering is revealed in the porous films due to the occurrence of magnetically soft regions near the pore edges and/or inside the pores. Modeling of the field dependences of magnetization and electrical resistance indicates that coherent rotation is the dominant mechanism of magnetization reversal in the porous system instead of the domain-wall motion typical of the continuous multilayers, while their magnetoresistance is determined by electron-magnon scattering, similarly to the continuous counterpart. The preservation of spin waves in the porous films indicates a high uniformity of the magnetic ordering in the fabricated porous systems due to a sufficiently regular pores array introduced into the films, despite the existence of soft-magnetic regions. The results are promising for the design and fabrication of future spintronic devices.

Magnetic transition from dot to antidot regime in large area Co/Pd nanopatterned arrays with perpendicular magnetization

We have studied the transition between two different magnetization reversal mechanisms for thin Co/Pd multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, appearing in magnetic dot and antidot arrays, which were prepared by nanosphere lithography. Various ordered arrays of nanostuctures, both magnetic dots and antidots, were created by varying size and distance between the nanospheres employing RF-plasma etching. We have shown that the coercivity values reach a maximum for the array of antidots with a separation length close to the domain wall width. In this case, each area between three adjacent holes corresponds to a single domain configuration, which can be switched individually. On the contrary, small hole sizes and large volume of material between them results in domain wall propagation throughout the system accompanied by strong domain wall pinning at the holes. We have also shown the impact of edge effects on the magnetic anisotropy energy.

Towards bottom-up nanopatterning of Prussian blue analogues

Ordered nanoperforated TiO2 monolayers fabricated through sol-gel chemistry were used to grow isolated particles of Prussian blue analogues (PBA). The elaboration of the TiO2/CoFe PBA nanocomposites involves five steps. The samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) all along the synthesis process. Selected physico-chemical parameters have been varied in order to determine the key steps of the synthesis process and to optimize it. This study is an important step towards the full control of the fabrication process.

Intra-grain perpendicular percolated L1₁ CoPt thin films

Ultrathin percolated high-Ku magnetic films with thicknesses of 2 nm are realized simply by using sputter deposition and post annealing. L1₁ CoPt:MgO, with Ku on the order of 10(7) erg cm(-3), was deposited on a MgO(111) substrate at 350 °C, followed by post annealing to induce complete segregation of the added MgO dopants. The optimized film shows significant enhancement of the out-of-plane coercivity, approximately an order of magnitude greater than that of the CoPt binary film, a remanence ratio close to unity, considerably reduced in-plane magnetization, sharp perpendicular magnetic reversal, and reduced surface roughness in the range of a few angstroms. Microstructure results indicate that MgO precipitates into grains within the interconnected L1₁ grains after appropriate post annealing. The MgO grains, with sizes in the range 2-7 nm, form coherent interfaces to the CoPt matrix and penetrate through the whole depth of the film. The development of ideal non-magnetic domain wall pinning sites explains the optimization of the perpendicular magnetic properties. The advantages of a simple fabrication process, a thin film layer structure, and remarkable enhancement of the magnetic characteristics demanded by ultrahigh-density recording reveal its potential for practical applications.

Probing the energy barriers and magnetization reversal processes of nanoperforated membrane based percolated media

Magnetization reversal processes in Co/Pt multilayers prepared on nanoperforated templates are probed by magnetization relaxation measurements. The signature of pinning controlled domain wall movement as expected for percolated media is identified. This contrasts with the nucleation-type reversal mechanism of a Co/Pt reference film prepared on a smooth substrate. A zero field energy barrier of 93kBT is determined by fluctuation field measurements and is elucidated by micromagnetic calculations using the nudged elastic band method. This value is sufficiently large to qualify the material as a promising percolated medium.

Tuning the properties of magnetic thin films by interaction with periodic nanostructures

The most important limitation for a significant increase of the areal storage density in magnetic recording is the superparamagnetic effect. Below a critical grain size of the used CoCrPt exchange-decoupled granular films the information cannot be stored for a reasonable time (typically ten years) due to thermal fluctuations arbitrary flipping of the magnetization direction. An alternative approach that may provide higher storage densities is the use of so-called percolated media, in which defect structures are imprinted in an exchange-coupled magnetic film. Such percolated magnetic films are investigated in the present work. We employ preparation routes that are based on (i) self-assembly of Au nanoparticles and (ii) homogeneous size-reduction of self-assembled polystyrene particles. On such non-close-packed nanostructures thin Fe films or Co/Pt multilayers are grown with in-plane and out-of-plane easy axis of magnetization. The impact of the particles on the magnetic switching behavior is measured by both integral magnetometry and magnetic microscopy techniques. We observe enhanced coercive fields while the switching field distribution is broadened compared to thin-film reference samples. It appears possible to tailor the magnetic domain sizes down to the width of an unperturbed domain wall in a continuous film, and moreover, we observe pinning and nucleation at or close to the imprinted defect structures.

Magnetic nanostructures by adaptive twinning in strained epitaxial films

We exploit the intrinsic structural instability of the Fe(70)Pd(30) magnetic shape memory alloy to obtain functional epitaxial films exhibiting a self-organized nanostructure. We demonstrate that coherent epitaxial straining by 54% is possible. The combination of thin film experiments and large-scale first-principles calculations enables us to establish a lattice relaxation mechanism, which is not expected for stable materials. We identify a low twin boundary energy compared to a high elastic energy as key prerequisite for the adaptive nanotwinning. Our approach is versatile as it allows to control both, nanostructure and intrinsic properties for ferromagnetic, ferroelastic, and ferroelectric materials.