Direct Depth- and Lateral- Imaging of Nanoscale Magnets Generated by Ion Impact

摘要: Nanomagnets form the building blocks for a variety of spin-transport, spin-wave and data storage devices. In this work we generated nanoscale magnets by exploiting phenomenon disorder-induced ferromagnetism; disorder was induced locally on chemically ordered, initially non-ferromagnetic, Fe60Al40 precursor film using  nm diameter beam Ne(+) ions at 25 keV energy. The energetic randomized atomic arrangement locally, leading to formation ferromagnetism in ion-affected regime. interaction penetrating ion with host atoms is known be spatially inhomogeneous, raising questions magnetic homogeneity nanostructures caused ion-induced collision cascades. Direct holographic observations flux-lines emergent from were made order measure depth- lateral- magnetization variation ferromagnetic/non-ferromagnetic interfaces. Our results suggest that high-resolution nanomagnets practically any desired 2-dimensional geometry can directly written onto selected alloy thin films nano-focussed ion-beam stylus, thus enabling rapid prototyping testing novel configurations their magneto-coupling properties.