Hybrid nanomaterials have received voluminous interest due to the combination of unique properties of organic and inorganic component in one material. In this class, magnetic polymer nanocomposites are of particular interest because of the combination of excellent magnetic properties, stability, and good biocompatibility. Organic–inorganic magnetic nanocomposites can be prepared by in situ, ex situ, microwave reflux, co-precipitation, melt blending, and ceramic–glass processing and plasma polymerization techniques. These nanocomposites have been exploited for in vivo imaging, as superparamagnetic or negative contrast agents, drug carriers, heavy metal adsorbents, and magnetically recoverable photocatalysts for degradation of organic pollutants. This review article is mainly focused on fabrication of magnetic polymer nanocomposites and their applications. Different types of magnetic nanoparticles, methods of their synthesis, properties, and applications have also been reviewed briefly. The review also provides detailed insight into various types of magnetic nanocomposites and their synthesis. Diverse applications of magnetic nanocomposites including environmental and biomedical uses have been discussed.

Magnetic polymer nanocomposites for environmental and biomedical applications

By means of thermal decomposition, we prepared single-phase spherical Ni nanoparticles (23 to 114 nm in diameter) that are face-centered cubic in structure. The magnetic properties of the Ni nanoparticles were experimentally as well as theoretically investigated as a function of particle size. By means of thermogravimetric/differential thermal analysis, the Curie temperature TC of the 23-, 45-, 80-, and 114-nm Ni particles was found to be 335°C, 346°C, 351°C, and 354°C, respectively. Based on the size-and-shape dependence model of cohesive energy, a theoretical model is proposed to explain the size dependence of TC. The measurement of magnetic hysteresis loop reveals that the saturation magnetization MS and remanent magnetization increase and the coercivity decreases monotonously with increasing particle size, indicating a distinct size effect. By adopting a simplified theoretical model, we obtained MS values that are in good agreement with the experimental ones. Furthermore, with increase of surface-to-volume ratio of Ni nanoparticles due to decrease of particle size, there is increase of the percentage of magnetically inactive layer.

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Size dependence of the magnetic properties of Ni nanoparticles prepared by thermal decomposition method

Financial support by several projects is acknowledged: MAT2014-51982-C2-1-R, MAT2014-51982-C2-2-R and MAT2015-69725-REDT from MINECO (including FEDER funding), CELINA COST Action CM1301, Aragon Regional Government through project E26, FP7 Marie Curie Fellowship 3DMAGNANOW, EPSRC Early Career Fellowship
EP/M008517/1 and Winton Fellowship.

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Review of magnetic nanostructures grown by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID)

The creation of large magnetic fields is a necessary component in many technologies, ranging from magnetic resonance imaging, electric motors and generators, and magnetic hard disk drives in information storage. This is typically done by inserting a ferromagnetic pole piece with a large magnetisation density MS in a solenoid. In addition to large MS, it is usually required or desired that the ferromagnet is magnetically soft and has a Curie temperature well above the operating temperature of the device. A variety of ferromagnetic materials are currently in use, ranging from FeCo alloys in, for example, hard disk drives, to rare earth metals operating at cryogenic temperatures in superconducting solenoids. These latter can exceed the limit on MS for transition metal alloys given by the Slater-Pauling curve. This article reviews different materials and concepts in use or proposed for technological applications that require a large MS, with an emphasis on nanoscale material systems, such as thin and ultra-thin films. Attention is also paid to other requirements or properties, such as the Curie temperature and magnetic softness. In a final summary, we evaluate the actual applicability of the discussed materials for use as pole tips in electromagnets, in particular, in nanoscale magnetic hard disk drive read-write heads; the technological advancement of the latter has been a very strong driving force in the development of the field of nanomagnetism.

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A review of high magnetic moment thin films for microscale and nanotechnology applications

Patterned magnetic nanowires are extremely well suited for data storage and logic devices. They offer non-volatile storage, fast switching times, efficient operation and a bistable magnetic configuration that are convenient for representing digital information. Key to this is the high level of control that is possible over the position and behaviour of domain walls (DWs) in magnetic nanowires. Magnetic random access memory based on the propagation of DWs in nanowires has been released commercially, while more dynamic shift register memory and logic circuits have been demonstrated. Here, we discuss the present standing of this technology as well as reviewing some of the basic DW effects that have been observed and the underlying physics of DW motion. We also discuss the future direction of magnetic nanowire technology to look at possible developments, hurdles to overcome and what nanowire devices may appear in the future, both in classical information technology and beyond into quantum computation and biology.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/23035871.pdf

Nanowire spintronics for storage class memories and logic

This study explores experimentally the stochastic nature of the domain wall depinning in permalloy nanowires using notches of various shapes and depths. The presence of the domain wall in the notch is detected through its anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR), which is measured with high precision in order to detect even small changes in the domain wall profile. These measurements showed that variations in the depinning field are related with changes, sometimes very small, in the AMR profile, which indicates that small changes in the pinned domain wall profile can affect largely the depinning process. As these small changes are many times unpredictable and uncontrollable, the stochastic nature of the depinning could have negative consequences for practical applications based on permalloy nanowires.

Stochastic nature of the domain wall depinning in permalloy magnetic nanowires

Magnetic properties and morphology of Ni nanoparticles synthesized in gas phase

In this work, we report the magnetic properties of sputtered Permalloy (Py: Ni80Fe20)/molybdenum (Mo) multilayer thin films. We show that it is possible to maintain a low coercivity and a high permeability in thick sputtered Py films when reducing the out-of-plane component of the anisotropy by inserting thin film spacers of a non-magnetic material like Mo. For these kind of multilayers, we have found coercivities which are close to those for single layer films with no out-of-plane anisotropy. The coercivity is also dependent on the number of layers exhibiting a minimum value when each single Py layer has a thickness close to the transition thickness between Neel and Bloch domain walls.

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Magnetic properties of sputtered Permalloy/molybdenum multilayers

The exchange interaction of Gd adjacent to Fe has been characterized by transport measurements on a double spin valve with a Fe/Gd/Fe trilayer as the middle layer. Our measurements show that the ferromagnetism of the Gd is enhanced by the presence of the Fe, and it remains ferromagnetic over its Curie temperature up to a thickness no smaller than 1 nm adjacent to the Fe. This thickness is more than double what has been reported before. Additionally, the saturation magnetization of the thin Gd layer sandwiched in Fe was found to be half of its bulk value. This reduced magnetization does not seem to be related to the proximity of Fe but rather to the incomplete saturation of Gd even for very high fields.

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Enhanced exchange and reduced magnetization of Gd in an Fe/Gd/Fe trilayer

This work explores the conditions that allow the injection and pinning of different magnetic domain walls (DWs) in Permalloy nanostripes with notches of different shapes. The injection is done under a constant external field by applying a 10 ns current pulse through an adjacent current line. The type of DW is identified by its anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). We find that, while a quasi-static pinning (nucleating at zero field and propagating the DW to the notch by slowly increasing the external field) would allow to distinguish different types of DWs pinned at the notch, a dynamic pinning (nucleating, propagating, and pinning the DW under a constant non-zero magnetic field) makes the discrimination of different DWs very difficult. Micromagnetic simulations indicate that the AMR of the different types of DWs become quite similar to each other as the injection field increases. This might explain why at large injection fields, usually only one or two values of resistance are detected, depending on the shape of the notch. Therefore, caution should be taken when establishing a one-to-one relationship between a type of DW and a value of resistance, especially if the injection is done under a non-zero external magnetic field.

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M. Maicas

Papers

Stochastic nature of the domain wall depinning in permalloy magnetic nanowires

Magnetic properties and morphology of Ni nanoparticles synthesized in gas phase

Magnetic properties of sputtered Permalloy/molybdenum multilayers

Enhanced exchange and reduced magnetization of Gd in an Fe/Gd/Fe trilayer

Selective injection of magnetic domain walls in Permalloy nanostripes