11-02/03 :: February / March 2011


nanotimes News in Brief


79


a diameter of 0.30 thousandth of a millimeter (300 nanometers) on top of a thin magnetic layer. Under specific conditions, all of these glass spheres arrange next to each other and therefore form a mask of tiny hexagons with small gaps. When the scientists direct argon ions at this layer, these atomic and electrically charged projectiles penetrate the gaps between the glass spheres and force particles out of the magnetic layer located under the gaps. The array of the glass spheres, thus, functions as a mask: One magnetic disk remains below each individual glass sphere, whi- le the magnetic layer under the gaps erodes. During the bombardment, though, the argon ions remove material from the glass spheres which, according to that, continuously decrease in size.


At the end of the process the diameter of the glass spheres is only 260 nanometers, instead of the ori- ginal 300 nanometers. This permits the argon ions to reach also areas which are located further inside the magnetic disks that are emerging beneath the glass spheres over time. Because the time of bom- bardment is shorter in these places, less material is removed on the inside. The desired slanted edge is therefore created virtually on its own.


Image on page 1: Slanted exterior edges allow tiniest magnetic vortices on nano disks, one disk having a diameter of 150nm. Each vortice is directed either upwards or downwards. Together with the direction of the magnetic rotation each magnetic disk can take four different states on the smallest space. © S. Münster, Kunstkosmos


Norbert Martin, Nadja-Carola Bigall, Ingolf Mönch, Tho- mas Gemming, Alexander Eychmüller, Roland Mattheis, Rudolf Schäfer, Ludwig Schultz, Jeffrey McCord: Enhanced Nucleation of Vortices in Soft Magnetic Materials Prepared by Silica Nanosphere Lithography, In: Advanced Functio- nal Materials, Volume 21(2011), Issue 5, March 8, 2011, Pages 891-896, DOI:10.1002/adfm.201002140: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201002140


http://www.ifw-dresden.de http://www.hzdr.de


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95