Rantej Bali

Printing nearly-discrete magnetic patterns using chemical disorder induced ferromagnetism

Ferromagnetism in certain alloys consisting of magnetic and nonmagnetic species can be activated by the presence of chemical disorder. This phenomenon is linked to an increase in the number of nearest-neighbor magnetic atoms and local variations in the electronic band structure due to the existence of disorder sites. An approach to induce disorder is through exposure of the chemically ordered alloy to energetic ions; collision cascades formed by the ions knock atoms from their ordered sites and the concomitant vacancies are filled randomly via thermal diffusion of atoms at room temperature. The ordered structure thereby undergoes a transition into a metastable solid solution. Here we demonstrate the patterning of highly resolved magnetic structures by taking advantage of the large increase in the saturation magnetization of Fe60Al40 alloy triggered by subtle atomic displacements. The sigmoidal characteristic and sensitive dependence of the induced magnetization on the atomic displacements manifests a sub-50 nm patterning resolution. Patterning of magnetic regions in the form of stripes separated by ∼ 40 nm wide spacers was performed, wherein the magnet/spacer/magnet structure exhibits reprogrammable parallel (↑/spacer/↑) and antiparallel (↑/spacer/↓) magnetization configurations in zero field. Materials in which the magnetic behavior can be tuned via ion-induced phase transitions may allow the fabrication of novel spin-transport and memory devices using existing lateral patterning tools.

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

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

Laser-Rewriteable Ferromagnetism at Thin-Film Surfaces

Manipulation of magnetism using laser light is considered as a key to the advancement of data storage technologies. Until now, most approaches seek to optically switch the direction of magnetization rather than to reversibly manipulate the ferromagnetism itself. Here, we use ∼100 fs laser pulses to reversibly switch ferromagnetic ordering on and off by exploiting a chemical order-disorder phase transition in Fe60Al40, from the B2 to the A2 structure and vice versa. A single laser pulse above a threshold fluence causes nonferromagnetic B2 Fe60Al40 to disorder and form the ferromagnetic A2 structure. Subsequent laser pulsing below the threshold reverses the surface to B2 Fe60Al40, erasing the laser-induced ferromagnetism. Simulations reveal that the order-disorder transition is regulated by the extent of surface supercooling; above the threshold for complete melting throughout the film thickness, the liquid phase can be deeply undercooled before solidification. As a result, the vacancy diffusion in the resolidified region is limited and the region is trapped in the metastable chemically disordered state. Laser pulsing below the threshold forms a limited supercooled surface region that solidifies at sufficiently high temperatures, enabling diffusion-assisted reordering. This demonstrates that ultrafast lasers can achieve subtle atomic rearrangements in bimetallic alloys in a reversible and nonvolatile fashion.

Magnetization Reversal of Disorder-Induced Ferromagnetic Regions in Fe 60 Al 40 Thin Films

Magnetization processes were investigated by employing magnetometry and magnetic domain imaging using magnetooptical longitudinal and polar effects in Fe60Al40 films of 40 nm thickness. The films were initially chemically ordered and weakly ferromagnetic, and a large increase in the saturation magnetization was achieved through chemical disorder induced by Ne+-ion irradiation. Various sample geometries were investigated: 1) continuous film; 2) homogenously irradiated wire; and 3) magnetic stripe-patterned wire. Magnetization reversal and magnetic domains formed under the influence of the above sample geometries are reported.

Focused Helium and Neon Ion Beam Modification of High- T C Superconductors and Magnetic Materials

The ability of gas field ion sources (GFIS) to produce controllable inert gas ion beams with atomic level precision opens up new applications in nanoscale direct-write material modification. Two areas where this has recently been demonstrated is focused helium ion beam production of high-transition temperature (high-T C) superconductor electronics and magnetic spin transport devices. The enabling advance in the case of superconducting electronics is the ability to use the GFIS to make features on the small length-scale of quantum mechanical tunnel barriers. Because the tunneling probability depends exponentially on distance, tunnel barriers must be less than a few nanometers wide, which is beyond the limits of other nanofabrication techniques such as electron beam lithography. In magnetism, the GFIS has recently been used to generate chemical disordering and modify magnetic properties at the nanoscale. The strongest effect is observed in materials where ion-induced chemical disordering leads to increased saturation magnetization, enabling positive magnetic patterning. In this chapter, we review the latest results and progress in GFIS ion beam modification of (high-T C) superconductors and magnetic materials.

Evolution of magnetic domain structure formed by ion-irradiation of B2-Fe 0.6 Al 0.4

Magnetic domains and magnetization reversal in 40 nm thick films of Fe0.6Al0.4, have been studied by longitudinal magneto-optical Kerr effect. By varying the Ne(+) ion-energy E between 2 and 30 keV (keeping a constant fluence), we varied the depth-penetration of the ions, and thereby influenced the homogeneity of the induced saturation magnetization M(s). The dependence of coercivity on ion energy shows maximum for 5 keV Ne(+). Considerable differences in the magnetic domain formation and magnetization reversal processes were observed: at low E (≤ 5keV), the reversal process is dominated by domain nucleation mechanism (high density of domain nucleation sites), consistent with the occurrence of an inhomogeneous M(s). Films irradiated with E > 5keV ions exhibit significantly low domain nucleation density, and the reversal is dominated by domain propagation mechanism, suggesting homogeneity in induced M(s). These results demonstrate the tunability of magnetization reversal behavior in materials possessing disorder induced magnetic phase transitions.

Programmability of Co-Antidot lattices of optimized geometry

Programmability of stable magnetization configurations in a magnetic device is a highly desirable feature for a variety of applications, such as in magneto-transport and spin-wave logic. Periodic systems such as antidot lattices may exhibit programmability; however, to achieve multiple stable magnetization configurations the lattice geometry must be optimized. We consider the magnetization states in Co-antidot lattices of ≈50 nm thickness and ≈150 nm inter-antidot distance. Micromagnetic simulations were applied to investigate the magnetization states around individual antidots during the reversal process. The reversal processes predicted by micromagnetics were confirmed by experimental observations. Magnetization reversal in these antidots occurs via field driven transition between 3 elementary magnetization states – termed G, C and Q. These magnetization states can be described by vectors, and the reversal process proceeds via step-wise linear operations on these vector states. Rules governing the co-existence of the three magnetization states were empirically observed. It is shown that in an n × n antidot lattice, a variety of field switchable combinations of G, C and Q can occur, indicating programmability of the antidot lattices.

Developing Rapid and Advanced Visualisation of Magnetic Structures Using 2-D Pixelated STEM Detectors

Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) electron diffraction patterns, imaged from the back focal plane of the objective lens, reveals rich information about the structure of materials. The sharpest patterns are obtained using a parallel (semi-convergence angle < 1 mrad) electron beam which typically illuminates a circular region with a diameter of 100 nm. In Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) the electron beam is focused to form a fine probe, potentially with sub-Ångström diameter. Signals generated by the interaction of the probe with a sample are collected by detectors which integrate the scattered electron intensity in the back focal plane for each probe position in a 2-D scan. A key aspect to obtaining high resolution information is that the performance of scanning and detection should be performed rapidly in order to provide live imaging for the user and to also to mitigate the effect of microscope instabilities and specimen drifts.

Tailoring magnetic nanostructures with neon in the ion microscope

Helium Ion Microscopy (HIM) (Hlawacek et al., 2014) is well known for its high resolution imaging and nano fabrication capabilities. The latter is usually employed to create structures on the nanoscale by either locally removing material by sputtering or by ion beam induced deposition from precursor gases. In gas field ion source (GFIS) based microscopes both process are often performed with neon due to the higher sputter yield compared to helium. In particular for material removal high ion fluencies are needed as the efficiency of the sputter process is low even when neon is used. However, as we will show, certain specific material properties like magnetism can be changed with fluencies much lower than the ones required for classical additive or destructive nano—machining. This will be exploited for the creation of magnetic patterns on the nanoscale.