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The search for novel tools to control magnetism at the nanoscale is crucial for the development of new paradigms in optics, electronics and spintronics. So far, the fabrication of magnetic nanostructures has been achieved mainly through irreversible structural or chemical modifications. Here, we propose a new concept for creating reconfigurable magnetic nanopatterns by crafting, at the nanoscale, the magnetic anisotropy landscape of a ferromagnetic layer exchange-coupled to an antiferromagnetic layer. By performing localized field cooling with the hot tip of a scanning probe microscope, magnetic structures, with arbitrarily oriented magnetization and tunable unidirectional anisotropy, are reversibly patterned without modifying the film chemistry and topography. This opens unforeseen possibilities for the development of novel metamaterials with finely tuned magnetic properties, such as reconfigurable magneto-plasmonic and magnonic crystals. In this context, we experimentally demonstrate spatially controlled spin wave excitation and propagation in magnetic structures patterned with the proposed method.

Using a combined experimental and theoretical approach, we address C 1s core-level shifts in amorphous carbon. Experimental results are obtained by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and electron-energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) on thin-film samples of different atomic density, obtained by a pulsed-laser deposition growth process. The XPS spectra are deconvoluted into two contributions, which are attributed to sp(2)- and sp(3)-hybridized atoms, respectively, separated by 0.9 eV, independent or atomic density, The sp(3) hybridization content extracted from XPS is consistent with the atomic density derived from the plasmon energy in the EELS spectrum. In our theoretical study, we generate several periodic model structures of amorphous carbon of different densities applying two schemes of increasing accuracy in sequence. We first use a molecular-dynamics approach, based on an environmental-dependent tight-binding Hamiltonian to quench the systems from the liquid phase. The final model structures are then obtained by further atomic relaxation using a first-principles pseudopotential plane-wave approach within density-functional theory. Within the latter framework. we also calculate carbon 1s core-level shifts for our disordered model structures. We find that the shifts associated to threefold- and fourfold- coordinated carbon atoms give rise to two distinct peaks separated by about 1.0 eV. independent of density, in close agreement with experimental observations. This provides strong support for decomposing the XPS spectra into two peaks resulting from sp(2)- and sp(3)-hybridized atoms. Core-hole relaxations effects account for about 30% of the calculated shifts.

During the sliding of an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip on a rough hydrophilic surface, water capillary bridges form between the tip and the asperities of the sample surface. These water bridges give rise to capillary and friction forces. We show that the capillary force increases with the normal load following a 2/3 power law. We trace back this behavior to the load induced change of the tip-surface contact area which determines the number of asperities where the bridges can form. An analytical relationship is derived which fully explains the observed interplay between humidity, velocity, and normal load in nanoscopic friction.

We report an experimental and a theoretical study of the radial elasticity of multiwalled carbon nanotubes as a function of external radius. We use atomic force microscopy and apply small indentation amplitudes in order to stay in the linear elasticity regime. The number of layers for a given tube radius is inferred from transmission electron microscopy, revealing constant ratios of external to internal radii. This enables a comparison with molecular dynamics results, which also shed some light onto the applicability of Hertz theory in this context. Using this theory, we find a radial Young modulus strongly decreasing with increasing radius and reaching an asymptotic value of 30± 10 GPa.

Chemical oxidation of multilayer graphene grown on silicon carbide yields films exhibiting reproducible characteristics, lateral uniformity, smoothness over large areas, and manageable chemical complexity, thereby opening opportunities to accelerate both fundamental understanding and technological applications of this form of graphene oxide films. Here, we investigate the vertical inter-layer structure of these ultra-thin oxide films. X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and IR experiments show that the multilayer films exhibit excellent inter-layer registry, little amount (, Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures