Kinetic self-organization of trenched templates for the fabrication of versatile ferromagnetic nanowires.

The authors have self-organized versatile magnetic nanowires, i.e., with variable period and adjustable magnetic anisotropy energy (MAE). First, using the kinetic roughening of W(110), uniaxial templates of trenches were grown on commercial sapphire wafers. Unlike most templates used for self-organization, those have a variable period; 4–12 nm are demonstrated here. Fe deposition then results in the formation of wires in the trenches. The magnitude of MAE could be engineered up or down by changing the capping layer or underlayer, in turn affecting the mean superparamagnetic temperature, raised to 175 K so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]