Magnetic characterization of cobalt nanowires and square nanorings fabricated by focused electron beam induced deposition

Federico Venturi; Gian Carlo Gazzadi; Amir H Tavabi; Alberto Rota; Rafal E Dunin-Borkowski; Stefano Frabboni

doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.97

Magnetic characterization of cobalt nanowires and square nanorings fabricated by focused electron beam induced deposition

Beilstein J Nanotechnol. 2018 Apr 3:9:1040-1049. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.9.97. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Federico Venturi^{1

2}, Gian Carlo Gazzadi², Amir H Tavabi³, Alberto Rota⁴, Rafal E Dunin-Borkowski³, Stefano Frabboni^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ FIM Department, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via G. Campi 213/a, Modena I-41125, Italy.
² CNR - Nanoscience Institute, S3 Center, Via G. Campi 213/a, Modena I-41125, Italy.
³ Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons and Peter Grünberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
⁴ Intermech-Mo.Re. Center, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via Vignolese 905/b, Modena I-41125, Italy.

Abstract

The magnetic properties of nanowires (NWs) and square nanorings, which were deposited by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) of a Co carbonyl precursor, are studied using off-axis electron holography (EH), Lorentz transmission electron microscopy (L-TEM) and magnetic force microscopy (MFM). EH shows that NWs deposited using beam energies of 5 and 15 keV have the characteristics of magnetic dipoles, with larger magnetic moments observed for NWs deposited at lower energy. L-TEM is used to image magnetic domain walls in NWs and nanorings and their motion as a function of applied magnetic field. The NWs are found to have almost square hysteresis loops, with coercivities of ca. 10 mT. The nanorings show two different magnetization states: for low values of the applied in-plane field (0.02 T) a horseshoe state is observed using L-TEM, while for higher values of the applied in-plane field (0.3 T) an onion state is observed at remanence using L-TEM and MFM. Our results confirm the suitability of FEBID for nanofabrication of magnetic structures and demonstrate the versatility of TEM techniques for the study and manipulation of magnetic domain walls in nanostructures.

Keywords: focused electron beam induced deposition; magnetic force microscopy; magnetic nanostructures; off-axis electron holography; transmission electron microscopy.