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Effect of Size and Conguration on the Magnetization of Nickel Dot Arrays

F. Nasirpouri1;2 , A. Nogaret3 , and S. J. Bending3
Department of Materials Engineering, Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz, Iran Nanostructured Materials Research Center, Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz, Iran Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, U.K.
We report experimental results on magnetic properties of our fabricated nickel nanodot arrays studied with magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE). Arrays of nickel dots with different size and periodicity were fabricated by electronbeam (E-B) lithography and lift-off processes. 50 nm thick arrays (200 nm 200 nm) of nickel dots exhibit that the magnetization occurs independently in terms of the direction of applied eld, while smaller arrays (120 nm 80 nm) with thicknesses ranging from 12 nm to 35 nm show the effect of size and conguration of arrays whose magnetic responses are different. Thinner dots in such array seem to assume single domain state with a preferential easy and hard axis in the array, but thicker dots show a vortex type remanent magnetization. We ascribe the existence of the preferential magnetization axis to a dipolar-dipolar interaction due to small separation of single domain dots. Index TermsMagnetic force microscopy, magnetostatic interaction, MOKE, nanodot, nickel.

I. INTRODUCTION NCREASING demands for higher magnetic information storage capacity have made magnetic nanotechnology an intense and competitive eld of research in recent years leading to the development of nanomagnetism eld of research and technology [1]. The maximum achievable storage capacity depends upon the magnetization reversal of the storage material and its stability. The size, shape, and behavior of magnetic domains as recording bits in the material are the determining factors of such magnetic memory storage devices. Nanofabrication, mainly based on lithography techniques, makes it possible to fabricate arrays of separated magnetic dots in comparable critical sizes in nanomagnetism [2]. Nanostructures can be fabricated by post-lithography depositions called lift-off technique. This utilizes the height of a developed resist to break apart a subsequently deposited, much thinner, layer of material. The lm deposited on top of the resist is lifted off during resist striping, leaving behind only the portions directly deposited onto the substrate. It is crucial to have a clean break-off of the lm at the pattern edges of the resist. Therefore, lithography process might lead to some rough and inaccurate nanostructures when the process meets technical or resolution limitation. The lithography resolution limit is ultimately determined by the radiation wavelength. Hence, lithography is usually categorized by the radiation source as optical, electron-beam (e-beam), ion beam, and X-ray lithography [2]. The e-beam lithography technique uses an electron beam to expose an electron-sensitive resist. One of the main advantages of this technique is its versatility for the fabrication of arbitrary element shapes and array congurations [3]. The magnetic properties of nanodots are rather difcult to study due to the small signals. In general, most researchers
Manuscript received March 04, 2011; revised May 03, 2011; accepted June 08, 2011. Date of publication June 20, 2011; date of current version November 23, 2011. Corresponding author: F. Nasirpouri (e-mails: nasirpouri@sut.ac.ir, f_nasirpouri@yahoo.com). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TMAG.2011.2160190

resort to standard averaging techniques to study the magnetic properties [4][7]. In recent years, it has been approved that the magnetization reversal of such magnetic nanodot arrays can be investigated by several techniques. Magnetic force microscopy (MFM), in particular, gives a resolution below 20 nm with comparability low effort in sample preparation. It does not need ultra clean sample surface and UHV. Also, magnetic eld can be applied to samples during microscopy [8]. More recently, it has been demonstrated that magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) can be utilized to detect magnetic response raised from a small area of magnetic nanodot arrays, revealing different magnetization modes [9], [10]. While there are several investigation results on the magnetic properties of nickel dot arrays achieved by MFM or other techniques, [11][14] the effect of size and conguration of arrays on the magnetic properties of dots has not been extensively studied. In this paper, we aim to report our experimental results on magnetic properties of nickel nanodots arrays using MFM and MOKE methods. II. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS In order to measure the magnetic properties of nickel dot arrays, we rst fabricated initial marks from Ti/Au pads at the surface of an insulating Si/SiO substrate using optical lithography. These pads narrowed down to thin wedges separated by micron sized gaps on which we patterned arrays of nanodots. We then used electron beam lithography, model Raith Elphy plus equipped with Hitachi high resolution scanning electron microscope (HRSEM 4300S), to expose linear and grating of nano-scale dots in the poly-methyl-methacrylate (PMMA) layer directly over the gaps. Electron beam dose intensity were chosen so that the (300 C/cm ) and dose factor arrays of dots could be properly obtained. We utilized different exposure and PMMA composition to make dot arrays and study the consequent structure effect on the magnetic properties. The patterned PMMA layer was developed in methyl-isobuthyl-ketone (MIBK) and isopropyl alcohol (1:3 in volume). Then thin layer of nickel was thermally evaporated at a pressure of torr. After lift-off in acetone, we obtained arrays

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of nickel dots aligned in the marked positions to facilitate the magnetic measurements. MFM was used to study the magnetic response of the fabricated structures using an Asylum research MFP3D instrument in dynamic lift mode. We used two different high quality magnetic cantilevers with integrated tips and spring constants between 1 and 2 N/m supplied by Asylum Research. The resonance frequencies were found to be 5590 kHz. One of the cantilevers called Standard is Si coated with a single layer of 50 nm CoCr served as a magnetic thin-lm coating for the tips with 300450 Oe coercivity. The other one called low coercivity has 30 nm permalloy coating with a coercivity of less than 10 Oe. Magnetic force gradients were measured by detecting phase shifts in the cantilever oscillation due to attractive or repulsive forces acting on the ferromagnetic MFM tip. In some cases, we magnetized samples using an external electromagnet before studying the samples. In all experiments MFM tip was magnetized in the direction or perpendicular to the plane of the substrate prior to the measurement. The magnetization curves of the dot arrays were measured by magneto-optics Kerr effect [8], at 300 K and for different angles of the magnetic eld in the plane of the dots in respect to the mark angles. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION We rst fabricated larger arrays of square nickel dots. Table I summarizes the dimension of nickel dot arrays designed for investigation in this study. For this size regime, we found a good agreement between the actual and designed dimensions Fig. 1(a) illustrates a typical three dimensional atomic force microscopy (AFM) image representing the topography of 200 nm 200 nm grating of nickel square dots. AFM image shows that the fabricated dots are of good quality. The thickness (or height) of the dots in the grating is 50 nm. We measured the magnetization of these dots using MOKE magnetometry [8]. Fig. 1(b) shows the average magnetization curves of the arrays in different congurations, when the external eld is applied in the plane of dots along different directions. Superimposed curves do not reveal any considerable change between magnetization reversal of the array in different congurations. Hence, there is no detectable easy or hard axis of magnetization of the large array of nickel dots and each single dot is likely magnetized in its independent status. In order to investigate the effect of array conguration, we also fabricated a linear array of 200 nm 200 nm grating of nickel square dots and examined the magnetic properties with MFM. Fig. 2(a) shows AFM image representing the topography of the nickel 200 nm dots in a linear array. In the absence of an applied eld, there is no preferential direction of magnetization across the array. Upon application of an external eld ( kOe externally before MFM along ) nearly all the dots show a strong response against the magnetic tip. MFM images of Ni dots at remanence show that white areas disappear and dark area form. Fig. 2(b) shows magnetization of dots is parallel to the applied eld. The image presents the remanence state, just after turning off the external eld, indicating constant magnetization inside, and strong bright/dark contrast on the ends, representing the concentration of magnetic poles along the mag-

Fig. 1. (a) Three dimensional AFM image of 200 nm 200 nm grating of nickel square dots and (b) average magnetization curves measured by MOKE magnetometry in different congurations. Onset shows the direction of applied magnetic eld in respect to the array conguration.

TABLE I DIMENSIONS OF DESIGNED NICKEL DOT ARRAYS IN THIS STUDY

netized direction. It is likely that the perpendicular component of the stray magnetic eld (that interacts with the tip) has sharp peaks at the edges of the dots due to the reversal of the stray magnetic eld. This does not necessarily mean a domain. In a recent paper, the stray magnetic eld of arrays of stripes in the in-plane and perpendicular directions is calculated, where the stripe is assumed to be magnetized to saturation along in-plane orientation. The edges of the stripe emanate very sharp magnetic eld. We observed the same behavior for grating of nickel dots [15]. Smaller dots in closer separation reveal more interesting magnetization features. A 120 nm 80 nm grating of nickel square dots with different heights (or thickness) was fabricated. Fig. 3(a) shows the topography and line prole of 120 nm nickel nanodots with a thickness of 12 nm. A typical linescan taken on the AFM image of these dots is shown in the bottom panel, indicating that in spite of fabrication deciency and existence of unsmooth edges, the dimension of this dot array is relatively in accordance with the design. The corresponding average MOKE magnetization curves of such array in different congurations

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Fig. 2. (a) AFM and (b) MFM images of 200 nm 200 nm linear array of nickel square dots after the sample is magnetized in the plane of substrate.

are shown in Fig. 3(b). The main feature of the hysteresis loops is the existence of preferential easy and hard axes for different congurations as an easy direction of magnetization and a hard direction of magnetization along along . The squareness as dened remanence magnetization ( ) over saturation magnetization ( ) was measured for , both curves. When H is applied along , increases while when H is applied along to 0.83. Therefore, the reduction of magnetization energy ), even in small magnitude, is ob( to served when the direction of applied eld rotates from on the magnetization curves. We assume that an in-plane anisotropic behavior exists in the magnetization of square nickel dot lattice under the present size and conguration. It has been demonstrated [16][18] that well separated dots of circular shape made of polycrystalline ferromagnetic materials like permalloy [16] or Fe [17], [18] will not exhibit any in-plane anisotropy. However, it has been demonstrated that for dots with small enough separation any observed in-plane anisotropy is therefore a ngerprint for a magnetic coupling between the dots. This can be the case for Ni magnetic dots arranged in a square dot lattice, which is correlated to a magnetostatic interaction between the dots across the array. As is evident from the MOKE loops the two congurations exhibit different magnetization energies which can be estimated from the hysteresis and differ from the magnetization curves obtained for larger dot size and separation (Fig. 1). In order to prove this argument, we have performed MFM on the smaller dot size and separation. Fig. 4 illustrates MFM images at remanence of 120 nm 80 nm grating of nickel square dots with 12 nm thickness taken by the two different magnetic

Fig. 3. (a) Top panel: AFM image of 120 nm 80 nm grating of nickel square dots, bottom panel: line prole of the dots representing the thickness, (b) average magnetization curves measured by MOKE magnetometry in different congurations. Inset shows the direction of applied magnetic eld in respect to the array conguration.

tips, after the samples are magnetized in the plane of substrate. In Fig. 4(a) the MFM image is studied using the standard magnetic tip having a coercivity of about that of dots measured by MOKE, while Fig. 4(b) is the MFM image obtained with the low coercivity tip which does not interrupt the remanent magnetization of small dots. The MFM measurements were performed in the dynamic mode with a phase detection system. Resonance frequency shifts towards higher frequencies led to a bright contrast in the phase detection. Therefore, a repulsive interaction

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Fig. 5. The angular dependency of the in-plane vector component of the magnetic eld on the adjacent dot with 200 nm grating periodicity calculated for one, two, and three dot arrays. H is obtained by taking 0Ms = 0:64 T for nickel lm. Inset shows the variation of induced eld in polar coordination.

Fig. 4. MFM image of 120 nm 80 nm grating of nickel square dots taken with (a) standard magnetic tip and (b) low coercivity magnetic tip.

between tip and sample is represented by bright contrast and an attractive interaction by dark contrast. The magnetization direction of the dots are not exactly aligned in the direction of the applied eld, while bright contrast on the right-hand side and black contrast on the left-hand side are deviated for all dots in the array. Repeating the same experiment with a low coercivity tip exhibits a magnetic contrast that is characterized by a repulsive interaction above the center of a dot and an attraction interaction at both ends with same deviating angle for all dots. This observation shows also that a strong coupling persists among all dots in the whole array. The remanent state of Ni dots can be described as single domain state [7], [9], while the preferential magnetic state seen by MOKE and MFM measurements implies that a magnetic coupling occurs between adjacent dots in the array. Indeed, it has been shown that a magnetic anisotropy in thin dot arrays is

induced by a magnetostatic coupling energy and different approaches have been provided for estimation of dipolar interaction energy in the array [19], [20]. But all the studies have described the existence of dipolar interaction in the circular magnetic dots. Primary study reported by Mathieu et al. [19] has indicated the presence of a fourfold magnetic anisotropy in small dots. Grimsditch et al. [20] have explained the dipolar interaction having no particular role in in-plane magnetization of innite array of circular dots, but also shown that magnetic inhomogeneities inside each circular and ellipsoidal dot and corners of arrays exhibit an anisotropic magnetization behavior. The presence of easy/hard axis of magnetization of nickel square dots observed here may be explained in terms of the magnetostatic inter-dot interaction which gives an additional energy contribution to be overcome by the external eld during the static magnetization rotation. To discuss the effect of dipolar coupling on the static magnetization, each dot can be viewed as only when we a dipole of moment , emanating a eld of assume an in-plane magnetization ( ) in array of square dots. when We have calculated [21] the angular dependency of is aligned along , i.e., . Fig. 5 shows the angular dependency of magnetic eld emanating from an array of one, three, and ve 120 nm dots with a separation of 80 nm. As is seen from . The the strength of eld approaches a maximum around magnetostatic demagnetizing eld of a magnetized square , where dot is explained by is the demagnetizing factor and is the saturation magnetization, e.g., for nickel is 0.64 T). The induced dipolar eld as a function of dot position and separation, as described in [20], qualitatively explains that the relative easy and hard directions of magnetization appear as observed in our results. Finally we comment on another feature observed in our experiment which is the remanent vortex state in thicker nickel nanodots. An array of 120 nm 80 nm Ni dots with 35 nm thickness was fabricated and examined by MFM. Fig. 6 shows AFM, line prole, and the corresponding MFM image of such array of Ni dots. The fabricated nickel dots in this system appear

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only contrast observed in our experiments probably arises from the vortex core located at the dot center. However, this is worth noting that the size of our nanomagnets is slightly different from those reported so far in the literature to be exhibiting the ferromagnetic vortex state. The measurement of core size in our experiments is restricted since scanning probe techniques provide a convolution of the tip structure with the magnetic structures of interest and therefore quantitative determination is hampered by the detailed knowledge of the tip structure [22], [23]. The vortex-type remanent magnetization distribution is energetically favorable for the disks with weak magnetocrystalline anisotropy. The evolution of this state in nickel dots is expected to be stabilized when the disk size is above a critical value which determines the single state. It has been theoretically mentioned that such magnetization reversal of a dot in a vortex state takes place via nucleation, displacement and annihilation of a single magnetic vortex, when the magnetic eld applied in the direction perpendicular to the cylinder axis [24]. The precise information on the nucleation and annihilation of chirality and vortex would require a sequence of measurement by the application of external magnetic eld. IV. CONCLUSION MFM and MOKE are complementary techniques giving precise information on average and local magnetic properties of the dot arrays. In particular, MFM technique is able to show the magnetic domain state corresponding to each single dot and to the array. The latter provided makes average information above the whole array of dots. We observe that size and conguration play an important role in magnetic properties of nickel dot arrays. The smallest nickel dots in our study fabricated in arrays with the closest separation seem to be in single domain state and exhibit a magnetostatic interaction with adjacent dots giving rise to a preferential magnetization direction observed by MOKE. While thicker dots in the same array gives a vortex-type remanent magnetic state. Larger dots in greater separation do not reveal any dependence of magnetization on the conguration of applied eld. ACKNOWLEDGMENT F. Nasirpouri acknowledges the Royal Society for a visiting fellowship (2007), hosted by the University of Bath. D. Atkinson is highly acknowledged for MOKE measurements in Durham. REFERENCES
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Fig. 6. (a) Top panel: AFM image of fabricated 120 nm 80 nm grating of nickel square dots, bottom panel: line prole of the dots representing the thickness. (b) MFM image taken after magnetizing sample perpendicular to the dot. The fabricated dimensions have small deviation making dots more likely in circular shape.

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Farzad Nasirpouri received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in materials science and engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2006. He has been a Ph.D. visiting scholar at the University of Bristol and the University of Bath, U.K., in 2004 and 2005. He won an international visiting fellowship from the Royal Society in 2007 and worked for one year as a post-doctoral research ofcer in the Nanoscience group at the Physics Department of the University Bath in 20072008. His current job is Assistant Professor at Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz, Iran, having a research group of Nanomagnetic, Spintronic and Functional Materials Research. His major publications include a book (Nanomagnetism and Spintronics, Singapore, World Scientic, 2010), a recent paper on introducing a novel three-dimensional architecture for magnetic storage media published in APL (2011), and more than 40 other journal and conference papers. His main research interests include electrodeposition of nanomagnetic structures, electronic nanodevices, and functional nanomaterials.

Alain Nogaret received the Ph.D. degree in solid state physics from INSA Toulouse, France, in 1993 working on the magneto-tunnelling spectroscopy of the InAs/AlSb/GaSb system. He has studied hybrid semiconductor-ferromagnetic structures, the topic of a review he published in the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter (2010). His current interests in the areas of magnetism focus on the detection of the spin waves of nanomagnets using a two-dimensional electron gas as a photodetector.

Simon J. Bending received the B.A. Hons. degree in natural sciencesphysics from the University of Cambridge, U.K., in 1979 and the Ph.D. degree in applied physics from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1985. He held Post-Doc positions at IBM Research Labs., Switzerland, from 1985 to 1986 and the Max Planck Institut FKF, Stuttgart, Germany from 1986 to 1989. He joined the academic staff of the Department of Physics at the University of Bath, U.K., in 1989, was appointed to a personal chair in 2000, and now leads the Nanoscience Group. His main research interests include magnetic (superconducting, ferromagnetic, and hybrid) materials and spintronics with a particular focus on applications of electrochemistry and novel scanning probe techniques. He is also active in the eld of two-dimensional crystals (graphene and other layered crystals) and is co-director of the Centre for Graphene Science, a highly interdisciplinary collaborative research center bridging the Universities of Bath and Exeter in the U.K.