MINA-NEWS
Ferromagnetic nanoparticles…with a pinch of salt
An INAC research team has reached an important milestone on the path to developing very high-density magnetic storage bits. The team used 4-nm iron/platinum alloy nanoparticles made via chemical synthesis to obtain particles with stable magnetization at ambient temperature. The transformation was achieved through several hours of annealing at 700°C in… salt! The salt was then removed by adding an aqueous cysteine solution that stabilized the particles in solution.
The process is promising because magnetic storage bits created using a top-down approach (cutting up a prefabricated magnetic multilayer) are at least ten times larger. Nevertheless, several steps of the technology still need to be mastered, including the controlled assembly of nanoparticles.
Contact : peter.reiss@cea.fr
