No Arabic abstract
We show that the magnetic anisotropy energy of antiferromagnetic ferrihydrite depends on the square root of the nanoparticles volume, using a method based on the analysis of statistical distributions. The size distribution was obtained by transmission electron microscopy, and the anisotropy energy distributions were obtained from ac magnetic susceptibility and magnetic relaxation. The square root dependence corresponds to random local anisotropy, whose average is given by its variance, and can be understood in terms of the recently proposed single phase homogeneous structure of ferrihydrite.
The effect of surface anisotropy on the distribution of energy barriers in magnetic fine particles of nanometer size is discussed within the framework of the $Tln(t/tau_0)$ scaling approach. The comparison between the distributions of the anisotropy energy of the particle cores, calculated by multiplying the volume distribution by the core anisotropy, and of the total anisotropy energy, deduced by deriving the master curve of the magnetic relaxation with respect to the scaling variable $Tln(t/tau_0)$, enables the determination of the surface anisotropy as a function of the particle size. We show that the contribution of the particle surface to the total anisotropy energy can be well described by a size--independent value of the surface energy per unit area which permits the superimposition of the distributions corresponding to the particle core and effective anisotropy energies. The method is applied to a ferrofluid composed of non-interacting Fe$_{3-x}$O$_{4}$ particles of 4.9 nm in average size and $x$ about 0.07. Even though the size distribution is quite narrow in this system, a relatively small value of the effective surface anisotropy constant $K_{s}=2.9times 10^{-2}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ gives rise to a dramatic broadening of the total energy distribution. The reliability of the average value of the effective anisotropy constant, deduced from magnetic relaxation data, is verified by comparing it to that obtained from the analysis of the shift of the ac susceptibility peaks as a function of the frequency.
A new approach to increase the downsize scalability of perpendicular STT-MRAM is presented. It consists in significantly increasing the thickness of the storage layer in out-of-plane magnetized tunnel junctions (pMTJ) as compared to conventional pMTJ in order to induce a perpendicular shape anisotropy (PSA) in this layer. This PSA is obtained by depositing a thick ferromagnetic (FM) layer on top of an MgO/FeCoB based magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) so that the thickness of the storage layer becomes of the order or larger than the diameter of the MTJ pillar. In contrast to conventional spin transfer torque magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM) wherein the demagnetizing energy opposes the interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (iPMA), in these novel memory cells, both PSA and iPMA contributions favor out-of-plane orientation of the storage layer magnetization. Using thicker storage layers in these PSA-STT-MRAM has several advantages. Thanks to the PSA, very high and easily tunable thermal stability factors can be achieved, even down to sub-10 nm diameters. Moreover, low damping material can be used for the thick FM material thus leading to a reduction of the write current. The paper describes this new PSA-STT-MRAM concept, practical realization of such memory arrays, magnetic characterization demonstrating thermal stability factor above 200 for MTJs as small as 8nm in diameter and possibility to maintain thermal stability factor above 60 down to 4nm diameter.
We report on the magnetic and hyperthermia properties of iron nanoparticles synthesized by organometallic chemistry. They are 5.5 nm in diameter and display a saturation magnetization close to the bulk one. Magnetic properties are dominated by the contribution of aggregates of nanoparticles with respect to individual isolated nanoparticles. Alternative susceptibility measurements are been performed on a low interacting system obtained after eliminating the aggregates by centrifugation. A quantitative analysis using the Gittleman s model allow a determination of the effective anisotropy Keff = 1.3 * 10^5 J.m^{-3}, more than two times the magnetocristalline value of bulk iron. Hyperthermia measurements are performed on agglomerates of nanoparticles at a magnetic field up to 66 mT and at frequencies in the range 5-300 kHz. Maximum measured SAR is 280 W/g at 300 kHz and 66 mT. Specific absorption rate (SAR) displays a square dependence with the magnetic field below 30 mT but deviates from this power law at higher value. SAR is linear with the applied frequency for mu_0H=19 mT. The deviations from the linear response theory are discussed. A refined estimation of the optimal size of iron nanoparticles for hyperthermia applications is provided using the determined effective anisotropy value.
We show that the coercive field in ferritin and ferrihydrite depends on the maximum magnetic field in a hysteresis loop and that coercivity and loop shifts depend both on the maximum and cooling fields. In the case of ferritin we show that the time dependence of the magnetization also depends on the maximum and previous cooling fields. This behavior is associated to changes in the intra-particle energy barriers imprinted by these fields. Accordingly, the dependence of the coercive and loop shift fields with the maximum field in ferritin and ferrihydrite can be described within the frame of a uniform-rotation model considering a dependence of the energy barrier with the maximum and the cooling fields.
We synthesized pure and Co-doped (6.25 12.5 at.) ZrO$_2$ nanopowders in order to study their magnetic properties.We analyzed magnetic behavior as a function of the amount of Co and the oxygenation, which was controlled by low pressure thermal treatments. As prepared pure and Co-doped samples are diamagnetic and paramagnetic respectively. Ferromagnetism can be induced by performing low pressure thermal treatments, which becomes stronger as the dwell time of the thermal treatment is increased. This behavior can be reversed, recovering the initial diamagnetic or paramagnetic behavior, by performing reoxidizing thermal treatments. Also, a cumulative increase can be observed in the saturation of the magnetization with the number of low pressure thermal treatments performed. We believe that this phenomenon indicates that cobalt segregation induced by the thermal treatments is the responsible for the magnetic properties of the ZrO$_2$ Co system.