AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Tuesday Sessions
       Session MI-TuM

Paper MI-TuM9
Nanostructured Ultrathin Films and Nanowires: A Playground for Manipulating the Magnetic Anisotropy

Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 10:40 am, Room 2006

Session: Magnetic Nanostructures, Nanoparticles and Interfaces
Presenter: F. Bisio, CNR-INFM Unita' di Genova, Italy
Authors: F. Bisio, CNR-INFM Unita' di Genova, Italy
R. Moroni, CNISM Unita' di Genova, Italy
F. Buatier de Mongeot, University of Genova, Italy
M. Canepa, University of Genova, Italy
U. Valbusa, University of Genova, Italy
L. Mattera, University of Genova, Italy
Correspondent: Click to Email
We report the investigation of the magnetic anisotropy of nanorippled ultrathin magnetic films and magnetic nanowires fabricated by means of the ion sculpting technique. The nanoscale rippled morphology that develops under grazing incidence ion irradiation unbalances the number of surface atomic steps oriented parallel and perpendicular to the ripple direction, thus inducing a clearly observable in-plane uniaxial anisotropy. We have isolated the atomic-step-contribution to the magnetic anisotropy of the nanostructures and experimentally measured the uniaxial anisotropy energy of Co and Fe monoatomic steps located at the surface of Co/Cu(001) and Fe/Ag(001) films. We show that the simmetry and intensity of the magnetic anisotropy of these systems can be manipulated by varying the irradiation conditions and by functionalization of the nanostructures surface by magnetic or nonmagnetic overlayers.