Structural and magnetic properties in arrays of Ni and Co nanowires / Propriedades estruturais e magneticas de nanofios de Ni e Co

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

Arrays of magnetic nanowires have attracted considerable interest, mainly motivated by their use as model systems and by possible applications in high-density magnetic information storage. The macroscopic magnetic behavior of such systems is strongly dependent on the effective magnetic anisotropy (mainly determined by shape and crystalline contributions). In this work, we carry out a systematic study of the magnetic properties on highly-ordered magnetic arrays of Co and Ni nanowires as functions of length of the nanowires and temperature. Nanowires were obtained by electrodeposition into nanopores of alumina membranes prepared by a two-step anodization process from pure aluminium. Structural studies were performed by high resolution scanning electron microscopy and magnetic force microscopy. The images revealed uniform arrays of nanowires with diameter of 35 nm, and with hexagonal symmetry arrangement with lattice constant (or inter-nanowire distance) of 105 nm. The nanowires length varies between 560 nm and 2250 nm. We observed a change in the magnetic easy axis from parallel to the axis wires at room temperature to transverse to the wire axis at low temperatures. We analysed the temperature dependence of the reduced remanence and coercive field we verified that the samples present a crossover temperature of reduced remanence with magnetic field applied both perpendicular and parallel to the nanowires axis that varies with nanowires length. We interpreted our results in terms of a competition between the shape anisotropy of the wires, which tends to align the magnetization along the wires axis and the temperature dependent magnetic anisotropy, which tends to orient the magnetization transverse to the wires axis. The mechanism which can qualitatively explain the observed results as a function of temperature is an induced anisotropy of magnetoelastic origin transversal to the nanowires axis, caused by strains and stresses, due to the different thermal expansion coefficient of nanowires and the alumina matrix, respectively.

ASSUNTO(S)

processos de magnetização nanofios magneticos magnetization process anisotropia magnetica magnetic anisotropy magnetic nanowires

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