Eur. Phys. J. B 51, 501-506 (2006)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00250-6

Fabrication and magnetic behaviour of 2D ordered Fe/SiO₂ nanodots array

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory for NanoTechnology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, P.R. China
² College of Science, South China Agriculture University, Guangzhou, 510642, P.R. China

Corresponding author: ^a wzhong@nju.edu.cn

Received: 2 November 2005
Revised: 16 March 2006
Published online: 22 June 2006

Abstract

We have demonstrated a simple and universal morphology-controlled growth of 2D ordered Fe/SiO₂ magnetic nanodots array, which was based on 2D colloidal monolayer template composed of polystyrene (PS) spheres and one-step sol-gel spin-coating technique. The Fe/SiO₂ nanodots have a well-ordered structure arranged in a hexagonal pattern. The dots have the shape of quasi-pyramidal tetrahedron, which reside in the interstitial region between three PS spheres and the substrate. Magnetic measurements reveal that the nanodots array exhibits the in-plane easy magnetization direction. Compared with the unpatterned Fe/SiO₂ thin film, the dots array has lower saturated field, higher remanence and coercivity. The present method is applicable to 2D ordered nanodots array of other magnetic materials.