Magnetic iron oxide nanowires formed by reactive dewetting

Bennett, R. A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6266-3510, Etman, H. A., Hicks, H., Richards, L., Wu, C., Castell, M. R., Dhesi, S. S. and Maccherozzi, F. (2018) Magnetic iron oxide nanowires formed by reactive dewetting. Nano Letters, 18 (4). pp. 2365-2372. ISSN 1530-6992 doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b05310

Abstract/Summary

The growth and reactive dewetting of ultra-thin films of iron oxides supported on Re(0001) surfaces have been imaged in-situ in real time. Initial growth forms a non-magnetic stable FeO (wüstite like) layer in a commensurate network upon which high aspect ratio nanowires of several microns length but less than 40nm width can be fabricated. The nanowires are closely aligned with the substrate crystallography and imaging by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism shows that each contain a single magnetic domain. The driving force for dewetting appears to be the minimization of strain energy of the Fe3O4 crystallites and follows the Tersoff and Tromp model in which strain is minimized at constant height by extending in one epitaxially matched direction. Such wires are promising in spintronic applications and we predict that the growth will also occur on other hexagonal substrates.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/76189
Identification Number/DOI	10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b05310
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary centres and themes > Chemical Analysis Facility (CAF) Life Sciences > School of Chemistry, Food and Pharmacy > Department of Chemistry Interdisciplinary centres and themes > Chemical Analysis Facility (CAF) > Electron Microscopy Laboratory (CAF)
Publisher	ACS Publications
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