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NEW METHOD FOR FABRICATING HIGH-QUALITY ULTRATHIN COBALT FERRITE NANOSTRUCTURES

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Researchers from the CSIC and the ALBA Synchrotron have synthetized and characterised this material with nanometre thickness. The work, published in "Advanced Materials", has applications in spintronics.

A team of researchers from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the ALBA Synchrotron has developed a new method to produce and characterise cobalt ferrite nanostructures with higher quality than ever before. The obtained nanostructures consist of ultrathin bidimensional crystals, up to 10 micrometres in lateral size and between 1 and 100 nanometres in thickness. The study, published this week in Advanced Materials, has implications in spintronics, a technology for developing advanced computing systems.

This new method is applicable to a wide variety of materials that can set the ground for developing nanoelectronic and spintronic devices. In particular, cobalt ferrite is used in the production of spin valves, one of the components of the computers' hard disk read heads.

"The nanostructures or cobalt ferrite islands have a much higher quality than what has been achieved so far, as evidenced by the fact that their magnetic domains are up to 10.000 times larger", says Juan de la Figuera, CSIC researcher from the Institute of Physical Chemistry "Rocasolano".

Growth and initial characterization of the islands were performed at the low-energy electron and photoemission electron microscope of the CIRCE beamline at the ALBA Synchrotron. Cobalt and iron atoms were deposited on a substrate at high temperature, while being exposed to oxygen. The growth was monitored and optimised in-situ, in real space and real time, with the microscope, where the crystals composition and distribution of magnetic domains were also determined. Finally, samples were also analysed at the CSIC Materials Science Institute in Madrid by atomic force microscopy.

Using the movement of the magnetic domains walls for information storage is a current hot research topic, and cobalt ferrite – an oxide with spinel mineral structure - belongs to a family with "promising properties in this field", according to de la Figuera.

"We have achieved the growth of films of this material without any defects. At present, the promising properties of this material will help us to understand how the domains walls move and how they interact", says Adrián Quesada, CSIC researcher at the Institute of Ceramics and Glass.

 

IM-CIRCE_CSIC_NanoestructurasFerritaCobalto

Fig: Top left) Low-energy electron microscospy image of a large island; Top right) Atomic force microscopy image of the same island; Bottom) Photoemission electron microscopy (XMCD-PEEM) images of the same island shown in top left image, obtained at the Fe and Co Ledges respectively, portraying the magnetic domain configuration.

 

Reference: L. Martín-García, A. Quesada, C. Munuera, J.F. Fernández, M. García-Hernández, M. Foerster, L. Aballe, J. de la Figuera. Atomically flat ultrathin cobalt ferrite islands. Advanced Materials. DOI: 10.1002/adma.201502799

Link to CSIC website

 

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