Structural and magnetic properties of planar nanowire arrays of Co grown on oxidized vicinal silicon (111) templates

Abstract

e fabricated planar arrays of Co nanowires (NWs) on oxidized step-bunched Si (111) templates using shallow angle deposition. These planar NW arrays exhibit ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature for NW widths down to 25 nm. The NWs possess polycrystalline character with hcp-crystal structure, and present a lightly oxidized interface when capped with MgO. The magnetic anisotropy of the NW array is dominated by the shape anisotropy, which keeps the magnetization in-plane with easy axis parallel to the wires. By reducing the inter-wire separation, we obtain NW arrays with reduced coercivity demonstrating the importance of magneto-static interactions in determining the magnetic properties of the NWs.