Ultradense Arrays of Sub-100 nm Co/CoO Nanodisks for Spintronics Applications
R. Morales, Amanda Flores, Nicolás M. Vargas, Jason Giuliani, Iván K. Schuller, Carlos Monton
Abstract
Sub-100 nm ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic nanodisks present enhanced magnetic properties with respect to their thin film counterparts. Co/CoO disks were fabricated over large areas by a transferring process of an anodic aluminum oxide membrane, electron beam evaporation of Co, and subsequent oxidation to CoO. This method reveals exchange bias fields up to 4 times larger than that in thin films and higher blocking temperatures for the same oxidation protocol. The significant improvement of the magnetic properties is attributed to finite-size effects in nanostructures and might be exploited in diverse areas such as the magnetic stabilization of ultradense arrays or the scalability process of patterned heterostructures in spintronic phenomena.